A long time since I started this thread (and I'm startled not to find my contribution about indeed being "the" Karl Dallas and decidedly not dead) but I was talking to a friend about this the other day and he said that it was a tradition for all the locomotives to have female names, and Eloise was probably the name of the first loco to proceed down the track after it had been laid.

BTW, I'm not 54, but actually 71, and still singing and gigging, and currently working on two CDs at Alistair Russell's brilliant Glade Studio in Leeds. I can be reached at karldallas@blueyonder.co.uk, tel: +44(0)771 980 5907.