My experience from the 1970 BN merger is as follows:
Locomotives were the first equipment to be re-numbered. The old numbers on the number boards were changed to reflect the new BN number, although some locomotives as GN 2000 series kept their numbers with a "BN" sticker on the side of the locomotive. This was a bit confusion, but when you saw the side of the locomotive it was BN 800, for example.
Ed Burns
tdmidget Other than the conrail breakup there hasn't been a significant merger since the UP/SP in 1996 and the STB says there will be no more.
Other than the conrail breakup there hasn't been a significant merger since the UP/SP in 1996 and the STB says there will be no more.
What about a possible acquisition of Kansas City Southern by one of the larger Class 1's? From what I have read the STB may well approve it though the approval process would be more straightforward for a Road that does not currently have a lot of parallel coverage with KCS.
If that occurs issues with integrating the two roads existing locomotive fleets would certainly be a major planning focus.
"I Often Dream of Trains"-From the Album of the Same Name by Robyn Hitchcock
tdmidgetOther than the conrail breakup there hasn't been a significant merger since the UP/SP in 1996 and since the STB says there will be no more, this has to rank very high among the stupidist questions in the last 20 years.
And you would be just the 'stupidist' to have studied it, too.
Actually, there have been examples of accommodating 'new' power within a numbering system within the past few months, for example the integration of the "SD9043MAC"s into the NS roster. I would also expect to see continued examples of regional roads purchasing other lines that have their own motive power -- which might then be integrated into the parent organization's roster or numbering system. So I don't think it's particularly appropriate to dismiss it as stupid just because it's less likely now than in an era of grand mergers...
carnej1 The major issue in the modern era seems to integrating the former "foreign" power into the merged road's motive power management systems. That is a subset of a larger issue found in most mergers of technology driven companies (which nowadays would be most industries),finding a way to combine or replace existing data systems without having everything come to a grinding halt...
The major issue in the modern era seems to integrating the former "foreign" power into the merged road's motive power management systems.
That is a subset of a larger issue found in most mergers of technology driven companies (which nowadays would be most industries),finding a way to combine or replace existing data systems without having everything come to a grinding halt...
When it comes to data systems on today's railroads, the raw data standards are set by the AAR - and the registration of all interchange equipment (and most likely ALL equipment) in the Universal Machine Language Equipment Register (UMLER). What is unique among the carriers are their train naming conventions and how they fit into the entirety of their operations computer systems.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
A couple of historical examples from Europe come to mind:
In 1923, The British Goverment arranged to merge the existing railways into four geographic groups. An example was the London and North Eastern Railway which theortically operated all the lines north of London on the east side of the country to the top of Scotland.
The two largest railways were the North Eastern and the Great Northern, both of which numbered their locomotives from 1 with numbers reused as locomotives were scrapped. The NER had locomotives numbered up to around 2400 and the GNR to just below 1500. (The "Flying Scotsman" was from an order placed by the GNR and would have been GNR 1472). The combined railway added 3000 to the GNR numbers, so "Flying Scotsman" became 4472.
This system was replaced by numbering locomotives in groups of like types in 1946 and "Flying Scotsman" became number 103. A couple of years later, the British Railways were nationalised, and again the numbers were increased to avoid duplication with other merged systems, this time by 60000, so "Flying Scotsman" became 60103, which number it carried until withdrawn from service.
A more complicated example occurred on the reunification of Germany after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1990.
The German State Railways had formed in the 1920s from railways run by the constituent states, and a complex numbering system had been developed using five or six numbers of which the first two identified the locomotive type. Passenger locomotives started at 01, freight locomotives at 41 and so on.
Electric locomotives used the same system prefixed by "E" and diesel locomotives were prefixed by "V".
In 1945, the systems in the Russian occupied zone, which became the German Democratic Republic became a separate system. Initally the same numbers were used, and as new classes were introduced serious efforts were made to avoid duplication. Slightly different classes of 2-8-4 tank locomotive were introduced in the East and West, both class 65, but the West locomotives were numbered from 001 and the East locomotives from 1001.
The steam locomotives were never a problem, but when computer numbering was introduced, The non steam locomotives lost their E and V prefixes in favour of numerical prefixes. Sadly, in the West electrics got 1 as a prefix and diesels got 2, while in the East, electrics got 2 as a prefix while diesels got 1...
By 1990, steam had effectively gone and the Western system was applied to the former Eastern locomotives, with some shuffling of numbers to avoid two different classes 112 (the Western units became class 113, fortunately vacant...)
But these are examples of merger and renumbering on a grand scale...
M636C
The first order of business is to keep things running normally to avoid a meltdown. Engines tend to stay on its original system until a critical mass of locomotives have been renumbered into the proper agreed-upon number series. Then locomotives are used interchangeably across the system. When a unit undergoes some sort of shopping, minor things like cab signalling may be installed, and the unit may be repainted. Or, as in the latest mergers, it may not. Under a heavy rebuild sometimes major specifications are changed to create a fully unified fleet, such as ballast changes and headlight and bell positions.
Carriers normally have some form of system to their locomotive numbering; wherein similar kinds of locomotives are numbered in series. Power from purchased carriers get integrated into these existing (or expanded) series as they come due for the Quarterly maintenance - thus the number of locomotives you see with 'patched' numbers.
What is the process that use to integrate locomotive numbers from purchased railroads into their roster? For example BNSF has ATSF, BN locomotives fro mthe purchase of the BN and Santa Fe railroads. UP has SP, MP, and D&RGW locos to integrate into their rosters.
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