Would someone explain why some roads use letters along with numbers when numbering a locomotive? For example, many of the large steam locomotives UP used had the letter X in front of the number as in X4442 and many passenger F units will have numbers such as 403-C. What do the letters represent?
Numbers boards on locomotives on many railroads were used to display train numbers rather than the locomotive number. The Southern Pacific and Kansas City Southern were like this until the 1960s. Most other railroads dropped this much earlier. What the "X" indicates is that the train is
X8444 means that the locomotive is running as train Extra (X) 8444. It was standard practice to run extra (non-scheduled trains) using the lead locomotives number.
Take this example
SP SD9 in Commuter service
Here locomotive 4451 is leading train# 149 and so the number 149 is displayed in the number boards.
Going back to the earliest days of diesels being used in road service, both passenger and freight, railroad labor agreements became a consideration in the numbering of locomotives.
Certain labor agreements required the use of an Engineer & Fireman for every locomotive run. One interperation of that rule would have required 4 train and engine crews on a 4 unit set of EMD FT locomotives, if each was given its own unique number. The railroads counter to this interpertation was to give all the units the same NUMBER and a lettered suffix to indicate specific parts of the whole. ie. 103a - 103b - 103c - 103d....the four unit locomotive itself was refered to as Engine 103. Needless to say, as the years have gone on, these restrictive contract clauses have been negotiated out of the contracts and in today's world all locomotives have their own unique number.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
Does each railroad have its own policy concerning locomotive numbering? In Europe, a locomotive's number usually names its class/model, followed by a number showing its place in the roster. Perhaps the following example can help explain:
ABC Railroad buys 22 SD70MACs, so they might number the 17th locomotive delivered as follows: SD70MAC17. Except that locomotive class is just a number over here, so German Federal Railroad's 17th class 220 locomotive would be numbered 220 017.
Lee Koch wrote:Does each railroad have its own policy concerning locomotive numbering? In Europe, a locomotive's number usually names its class/model, followed by a number showing its place in the roster. Perhaps the following example can help explain:ABC Railroad buys 22 SD70MACs, so they might number the 17th locomotive delivered as follows: SD70MAC17. Except that locomotive class is just a number over here, so German Federal Railroad's 17th class 220 locomotive would be numbered 220 017.
Each railroad has a policy but very few have ever been as elegant as the nifty DB system. Many small railroads, with small fleets, use horsepower-based schemes, e.g., 3000-3001-300X for 3,000 hp locomotives. ARR, which you mentioned, used 1500s for F7s, 2500s for GP35s, 3000s for GP40s, and so forth, reflecting horsepower. The Class I fleets started out that way, to some extent, but they are so large now they mostly just jam new locomotives into whatever blocks are available between 1 and 9999, with an effort to try to keep like locomotives into the same series -- but that's not often feasible and like locomotives might be scattered into four or five different blocks.
RWM
Conrail tried hard to keep six axle units in the 6000's until they ran out of numbers and put the SD60Ms into the adjacent 5000's and MACs in the 4000's.
The wierdest scheme has to be the NYS&W with MU-able units having even numbers and non-MU units odd.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Conrail numbering 6-axle units in the 6000's made it a little easier to keep them off track that was restricted to 4-axle power only.
Might be wrong about this, but IIRC the RF&P tried to have all their even numbered road units facing north and the odd numbers facing south.
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