Why are train locomotives called such ?

Subhasisduttaroy
Indian Railway
Published in
1 min readOct 15, 2020

To understand this we have searched history of the word Locomotives. The origin of word Locomotive is Latin.

Photo by zibik on Unsplash

The origin word is “Locus” means “Place” .

In late Latin/Medieval Latin there is word is “Motivus” means causing movement.

Both word are connected and use as a single word as Locomotive since early 17th century.

When the movable steam engine invented in the beginning of 18th century, then to distinguished between stationary and self-propelled steam engine this word “ Locomotive” first use for the self -propelled steam engine.

That self-propelled steam engines were use in to pull the railway Coaches. So accordingly Railway engine were called as Locomotives.

Since that time to now a days Railway engine call as “Locomotive”.

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Subhasisduttaroy
Indian Railway

Writer with 18 million views and 200k upvote on Quora , Locomotive Engineer in Indian Railways. Passionate about writing. Looking for new dimensions in Medium.