Many shortlines go by the model number, e.g., 3803 for a GP38.
Some number by horsepower, CSX had CSXT 2002 on a GP38 (2000 hp).
Other roads tried to number everything in the 300s (MILW) or 700s (Soo).
Some numbered by the date of acqusition (M&StL, Detroit & Mackinac).
Each railroad has their own method.
Mike WSOR engineer | HO scale since 1988 | Visit our club www.WCGandyDancers.com
Each railroad has it's own numbering systems and those systems will change over time as the characteristics of the new power entering the railroad and the old power leaving the road change the overall character of the roads locomotive fleet. The numbering systems will also change when a 'ranking official', for his own reasons, will declare that change is necessary.
What seems like a good idea for numbering today, may become a bad idea in 5 years.
CSX began numbering their SD70Mac's in the 700 series...as more an more GE AC engines were purchased (AC's began numbering with 1 and progressed from there) they decided to renumber the SD70Mac's into the 4500 series and free up the 700 and higher series to the new GEVO ES44AC's which are numbered through the 700's into the 800's.
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trainfan1221 wrote:Railroads with huge fleets can end up with numbers all over the place. One thing a few railroads did stick to is having even numbered engines facing one way and odd numbered facing the other. Not sure how many if any still do it.
None that I am aware of! With powering trains to the tonnage of the train, the demands for power vary, throw in line of road break downs and the other day to day operating occurences and the attempt to keep locomotives facing a particular direction becomes impractical in the extreme.
I believe that South Shore arranged its GP38-2's in such a way when they first received them in the early 1980's. It made sense when they stayed on home rails since South Shore had no turntables or wyes. I doubt that this is still the case since South Shore now delivers to connections beyond its own trackage, such as IHB at Blue Island or BRC at Commercial Ave.
Some railroads numbered locomotives in 'blocks' - which frequently broke down when the block size exceeded 100 units. Others started a series for one wheel arrangement and just kept going as newer models of the same whyte classification came on the scene. Still others relied on the class (K-4, L-1 etc) to identify the loco design and simply pulled numbers out of a fishbowl - to whch the numbers of scrapped or sold units returned.
The Japanese Imperial Government Railways originally went with the block system, then added prefix numbers when the number exceeded 100 - 59632, for example, was a 9600-class 2-8-0. Later they assigned a letter for the driver count, two digits for the specific design and then simply numbered consecutively - D511 through D511162 (and beyond.) Diesel locos get a prefix D - as in DD13 - and electrics start with E - EF18, EH10. Steam has been officially dead since 1975, but the system lives on for diesels and electrics.
Chuck
19th century railroads often just numbered each locomotive progressively as they bought them, starting with no.1 and going up. Some small railroads did that in the 20th century, the Minneapolis Northfield and Southern that I grew up had the highest engine no. of 41 IIRC. Cabooses had a "zero" in front of their no., so you could see engine 15 pulling a train with caboose 015 at the end.
The Minneapolis and St.Louis numbered many of their early diesels (like their RS-1's) by the month and date nearest to the purchase date, so you might see engine 844 (Aug 1944) next to engine 146 (Jan 1946). But then the RS-1's had like eight different 'as delivered' paint schemes too!!
Most railroads eventually tried to organize their numbers by wheeltype - "OK all our mikadoes will be 1100's, pacifics will be 1200's, mountains will be 1300's" etc. Then once they got that straightened out, they'd merge with another railroad that had their own numbering system and everything would be messed up again!!
Even once organized, railroads would sometimes re-number their engines for...well for no apparent reason. Many railroads re-numbered and changed as diesels came in. Well known example was UP 844 steam engine, which had to be renumbered as 8444 because they needed 844 for a GP-30. As it happens, the 4-8-4 outlived the GP-30 and eventually got it's old number back!!
trainfan1221 wrote:One thing a few railroads did stick to is having even numbered engines facing one way and odd numbered facing the other. Not sure how many if any still do it.
I believe the RF&P did it this way. They may have had a good number of dual-control engines to help this. They also had a cab signal system that required one of their engines in the lead of any train, especially run-throughs of foreign power.
On the CN Lines website there are rosters for the CN-GTW-CV-DWP fleet.
Most of the 4 digit roadnumber series have been used twice in the past 100 years.
www.cnlines.ca is where to find the roster.
You might find a few patterns in numbering. Those patterns seem to change every decade.
Andrew Falconer
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