Train Numbers

[FThunder11]

If you see a train for example with the number 1234, does that train tend to stay in that area, running the same route?

[edblysard]

Are you referring to the number of the locomotive, as in the number in the "number board",
or the ID(call sign) of the train?
If you are referring to the number board, that locomotive can show up almost anywhere on a system, although they do tend to hang around the same general area for a while.
If you mean the train ID, then the answer is yes, that train will show up at the same place and time regularly, but most often with different locomotives.

By the same token, your local or transfer runs and local switchers tend to have the same power assigned to it for a long time, so you see the same locomotive on the same local train day after day.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

[heavyd]

Oh yah, they go all over! You might see the same SD40 for a few local runs and then if it is available for the next cross country train, then away it goes. One interesting railfan activity is recording the train engine number and then how long is it before you see it again and where.

[FThunder11]

"Are you referring to the number of the locomotive, as in the number in the "number board",
or the ID(call sign) of the train?"
I'm not sure which is which, so i mean the number u see on the side of the cab. or that little wondow above the cab window in a little box.

[louisnash]

There are times when I get to work in the morning,if I have time, I will watch the first 2 or 3 trains go by and get their numbers. If I can get out in time in the afternoon I will see the same locomotives go back. They go by so quick here it's hard to get out in time if I'm busy.

This don't happen often but it does happen.

The line I work beside is NS from Cincy to Danville KY. It's kinda neat sometimes how it can work out to see them twice in the same day.

Lately I have seen UP, BNSF, Sante Fe, and even a Southern Pacific loco. The UP is the main foreign power I see the most. I have seen the Southern Pacific twice so far this week and it's not even time for Wednesday work yet.

Brian (KY)

[edblysard]

Thats the number of the locomotive.
Unless it is assigned to a local out and back run, or yard to yard transfer run, it can go anywhere on that system.
Like heavyd said, you may see it for a few days in one area, then it dissapears.
If you keep seeing the same locomotive, in the same area doing the same type of work, say local switching or yard transfers, its been assigned to that duty.
Thats usually done to older locomotives, GP38s, old SD40s, Geeps and switch engines.
The bigger newer road power is often in pool service, and goes wherever it's power is needed.
A train ID is the call sign used on the radio to identify a train.
Example would be a BNSF train from Tulsa to the Port of Houston.
BNSF uses origin and destination points in their train IDs, so a train form Tulsa to the Port would be identify itself as TUPT on the radio, and a train from the Port to Tulsa would be PTTU.
Of course, as Tulsa originates several trains a day, each would also have a number after the call sign, so we might get TUPT101 today, but tomorrow its TUPT23.

Should have snapped that you saw, not heard, the numbers you were referring to.

Some roads at one time used the number boards for the train ID, so you might have seen a Santa Fe F unit, with 1234, painted on the side of the cab, but it would have X 01 in the number board, telling other crews that the train behind locomotive
1234 was extra 01.
That pratice has been gone for quite a while.
Stay Frosty,
Ed

QUOTE: Originally posted by FThunder11

"Are you referring to the number of the locomotive, as in the number in the "number board",
or the ID(call sign) of the train?"
I'm not sure which is which, so i mean the number u see on the side of the cab. or that little wondow above the cab window in a little box.

[espeefoamer]

Were SP & UP the only roads that used train numbers in the number boards or were there others?[?]

[edblysard]

I belive, but am not sure, the Santa Fe did so too.
But dont quote me on that!
Ed

[Anonymous]

Alaska Railroad also displayed train numbers in the number indicators, right into the 1970s. Probably the last US road to do so.
--John