Definition Questions

[Anonymous]

Hello,
I am new (sort of) to this Model Railroading thing. My dad had a bunch of train track and a couple of loco's that I messed around with as a tweener and a teenager. But, now that I am older and have a 5 year old son who is an absolute train fanatic, I am going to start to build a layout. Something that I hope will turn into a great family project with my dad helping out when he's in town and my son, daughter, fiance and I can all work on a little bit.

Having said all of that, I am curious if anyone knows of a collection of term definitions that I can read or look into. I've been picking up copies of Model Railroader and looking at lots of websites and am unsure what I'm looking at when they say GP9 for diesels or GP7, or whatever. I figured out the whole 4-6-2 for steam engines meaning their wheel configurations, but I was curious about the others.

Thanks for any help and I'm sure I'll be "lurking" here and posting fairly often.

Darrin

[bpickering]

Darrin,

I'm getting back in as well, and have a 3-year-old (in fact, today I posted a question on the Layouts forum about a tentative design for our first layout).

GP9 is a model number for a locomotive build by EMD (ElectroMotive Division of General Motors). Here is the first Google hit I found by typing "EMD GP9", with multiple pictures of GP9s:
http://www.railpictures.net/showphotos.php?locomotive=EMD%20GP9

Posting here is certainly one way to find an answer, but for me, Google works quite well too.

Brian

[egmurphy]

There's a 'glossary' section on this very website, up on the Model Railroader Magazine homepage (not the forum). Try this link to get to it. It won't have everything but it's a start. You can put a term in the search window or just select by letter and browse the definitions.

http://www.trains.com/glossary/glossary_search_user.asp

By the way, welcome back to the hobby and welcome to the Model Railroader forum. I've got to ask, how did your son become a train fanatic if you've been away from the hobby.

Regards

Ed

[Anonymous]

GP is an EMD (Electro-Motive Diesel) term. Locomotives with the designation GP means General Purpose. SD is another EMD term and stands for Special Duty. The numbers are simply a progressive numbering system. GPs had 4 wheel trucks, SD had 6 wheel trucks. EMD switchers were SW or NW. I think SW stood for switcher. I used to know what NW stood for, but don't anymore. General Electric (GE), Alco, Baldwin and Fairbanks Morris had different terms and nomenclature used to describe their locomotives. Not much and others know far more but hopefully this will get you started!

[PennsyHoosier]

Take a look at the glossary the Ed has pointed out. If you have other questions, post them on the forum. I continue to be amazed at the collective experise of the folks who gather here. I haven't struck out yet--and I've asked A LOT of question.

Oh, and by the way... [#welcome]

[Anonymous]

Thank you all for the quick, friendly and informative posts. Brian, I agree that Google is a great resource, but wasn't exactly sure what to search on for it. I guess I should have just jumped in there. Thanks for the info.

I guess I also could have looked a little harder for the glossary on this site, that's pretty much what I wanted to find. Thanks again for that information.

Ed, to answer your question about my son being a fanatic, my fiance had a friend whose son was all about Thomas growing up. I'm not sure where that came from, but when my son met him and saw all of his Thomas toys in his "train room" he was hooked. I don't think he's had a gift giving event go by since without getting something for his Thomas tracks. Which is what led me back to the hobby. I was getting ready to redo his room and thought about putting a train on a shelf around the top of the room. Then I decided that I finally have enough room in the house to go a little bigger than that....and the rest is , well, future. [:D]

Thank you all again for the great posts and I look forward to the amount of information that I will gain from all of the veterans and all of the "newer" people that I will be journeying with.

Darrin