markpierceFlashwave what is the X in any steam and some diesel numberboards, notably 4449 and the UP steam fleet, but others had it as well? "X" meant an extra train, not included in employees' timetable, e.g., not a scheduled train. The number of the train was based on the lead engine's number. Train orders would indicate the train's direction, such as X4567 East or X4567 West. Mark
Flashwave what is the X in any steam and some diesel numberboards, notably 4449 and the UP steam fleet, but others had it as well?
what is the X in any steam and some diesel numberboards, notably 4449 and the UP steam fleet, but others had it as well?
"X" meant an extra train, not included in employees' timetable, e.g., not a scheduled train. The number of the train was based on the lead engine's number. Train orders would indicate the train's direction, such as X4567 East or X4567 West.
Mark
To expand slightly on many railroads, probably the majority, the number boards repeated the locomotive number. But some, and I believe the SP was one, used the number boards to identify the train. So engine 1234 might display X1234 if it was leading an Extra train, 17 if it was leading passenger train #17, or 2-56 if it was leading the 2nd section of train 56.
John
I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this or not in a previous response but as I understand it a railroad could technically have some locomotives or cars with duplicate numbers. When roads merged, the "new" bigger railroad came into ownership of the smaller lines equipment. For example, Union Pacific owns the Southern Pacific, Rio Grande, C&NW, etc equipment from their merge. UP also owns the respective reporting marks, which would allow them to roster, say, two identically numbered pieces of stock under different reporting marks. One car could have SP marks and the other UP, but they are still both owned by Union Pacific and the reporting marks are like a prefix or suffix to the non unique number. Its late, hopefully that all makes partial sense.
Cahrn
cahrn I'm not sure if anyone mentioned this or not in a previous response but as I understand it a railroad could technically have some locomotives or cars with duplicate numbers. When roads merged, the "new" bigger railroad came into ownership of the smaller lines equipment. For example, Union Pacific owns the Southern Pacific, Rio Grande, C&NW, etc equipment from their merge. UP also owns the respective reporting marks, which would allow them to roster, say, two identically numbered pieces of stock under different reporting marks. One car could have SP marks and the other UP, but they are still both owned by Union Pacific and the reporting marks are like a prefix or suffix to the non unique number. Its late, hopefully that all makes partial sense.
What matters is not the number, but the intitials and number. So it doesn't matter if the the numbers duplicate as long as they have different initials.
In train order times, it was assumed that the initials of an engine were the home roads. So on the MP, an order to an extra train with the MP1865 as the lead engine would be addressed to "Extra 1865 North", the "MP" was assumed. If it had the UP1865 pulling the train, the order would be addressed to "Extra UP 1865 North". With track warrants and the number of mergers and trackage rights operations, the initials are now always part of the address.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
To CX500
Not sure what you are trying to say here! Are you saying for example that Extra 1234 West will have locomotive X1234 as it lead loco? If so, what if a particular RR did not use prefixes to their numbers and some "did not" use prefixes at all. Besides it would not be feasible for the engine shop to hold all X-prefix locos for exclusive use on Extras.
Additionally, number boards do reflect the loco numbers. The are not changeable. In your example, Loco #17 (on the number board) will always be Loco #17 and it would rarely if ever be used on Train # 17 as identified in the timetable.
Anthony
Dave-the-Train Most larger RR number their locos in a 4digit format which gives them quite a bunch of numbers to use. There are times though that they run out of numbers. In this case they can add a suffix letter (like the UP xxxxY numbers for yard engines. I recently saw something (Southern I think) that had an F suffix. I don't recall seeing any prefixes to loco numbers...
Most larger RR number their locos in a 4digit format which gives them quite a bunch of numbers to use. There are times though that they run out of numbers. In this case they can add a suffix letter (like the UP xxxxY numbers for yard engines. I recently saw something (Southern I think) that had an F suffix. I don't recall seeing any prefixes to loco numbers...
The letters that follow Southern Railway Locomotive Numbers have nothing to do with running out of numbers.
Those letters are technically called "check letters" (or sometimes "check digits" eventhough they are not numbers). There is a specific mathematical formula that is used taking the numbers of the locomotive and adding and multiplying them together in a certain way then reducing the product to a single digit to arrive at which letter will be applied to that unit.
A, F, H, J, L, K, R, T, W, X are the 10 letters that are assigned to 1 thru 0. 0 is used since 10 would not be a single digit, obviously. A is 1 and X is 0, and the rest should be obvious.
There are a number of stories associated with WHY Southern implemented this, on being that they wanted to see if Clerks were actually watching trains by their stations. You had to physically see the locomotives to see the check letter and record it on your train data sheets. Of course if a clerk was clever, he'd know the formula and could cheat anyway, and just sit back and relax as trains passed. This was of course before all the scanners that are wayside these days...back when everything was written down. Another story says it was a way to identify whether a number belonged to a Southern Loco or a Southern Freight Car. I've never really known for sure what the real reason was. As far as I know Southern was the only railroad who ever used such a "lettering" system as this...although other railroads have used letters as you suggested, but for an entirely different purpose.
aperkins8953Not sure what you are trying to say here! Are you saying for example that Extra 1234 West will have locomotive X1234 as it lead loco? If so, what if a particular RR did not use prefixes to their numbers and some "did not" use prefixes at all. Besides it would not be feasible for the engine shop to hold all X-prefix locos for exclusive use on Extras. Additionally, number boards do reflect the loco numbers. The are not changeable. In your example, Loco #17 (on the number board) will always be Loco #17 and it would rarely if ever be used on Train # 17 as identified in the timetable.
Anthony:
"Extra 1234 West" will have Engine 1234 leading. Extras are named according to the lead engine. Always.
Now some railroads like SP and UP DID have changeable numberboards on steam and early diesel locomotives. They'd have the numberboards display the train number. If it was an extra then it would be "X1234"
Take a look at the boards on top, with the individual segments.
http://railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=202680&nseq=27
Chris van der Heide
My Algoma Central Railway Modeling Blog
bladeslingerThe letters that follow Southern Railway Locomotive Numbers have nothing to do with running out of numbers. Those letters are technically called "check letters" (or sometimes "check digits" eventhough they are not numbers). There is a specific mathematical formula that is used taking the numbers of the locomotive and adding and multiplying them together in a certain way then reducing the product to a single digit to arrive at which letter will be applied to that unit. A, F, H, J, L, K, R, T, W, X are the 10 letters that are assigned to 1 thru 0. 0 is used since 10 would not be a single digit, obviously. A is 1 and X is 0, and the rest should be obvious.
About 20 years ago Model Railroader had an article in their "Computers and Model Railroading" column with a short program to properly calculate those check digits. I have that issue in my stash somewhere.
cv_acr About 20 years ago Model Railroader had an article in their "Computers and Model Railroading" column with a short program to properly calculate those check digits. I have that issue in my stash somewhere.
I actually have a printout that was given to me by a friend who received it from a NS computer tech. I don't know what kind of language this is supposed to be in though. I'll paste it below, though I don't know exactly how it'll format in this forum...
But I also have an old DOS program that someone wrote and turned loose in the wild many years ago called SRCHECK. Very simple to use...from the DOS command line you simply type SRCHECK ####
With the #'s being the 4 digits of the loco of course...if it happens to be a 2 or 3 digit loco number, you simply insert leading Zeros to make it into a 4 digit number. I've checked this program against hundreds of photos of SR locos, and it has never generated the wrong check letter. Back when I bothered to custom paint locos, I used it some to verify those numbers too...but usually I'd work from a photo too. All the recent releases in Southern that I've bought that have check letters on them all match what this program says as well.
Anyway, I mentioned the printout of a different program, and here it is:
SOUTHERN RAILROADS CHECK DIGITS
EXAMPLE: 2710 H
STEP 1: MAKE THE FOLLOWING CHART ENGINE-DIGIT-1 (ED1) ENGINE-DIGIT-2 (ED2) ENGINE-DIGIT-3 (ED3) ENGINE-DIGIT-4 (ED4)
CHECK-DIGIT-1 (CD1) CHECK-DIGIT-2 (CD2) CHECK-DIGIT-3 (CD3)
STEP 2: PLACE THE ENGINE NUMBER IN THE ED CHART ED1 2 ED2 7 ED3 1 ED4 0
STEP 3: COMPUTE THE CD NUMBERS ED1 2 ED2 7 ED3 1 ED4 0
CD1 0,1,8,92 CD2 14,5,7,9 CD3 2,3
a: CD1=ED4 * 2 (0 * 2 = 0) b: IF CD1 > 9 THEN SUBTRACT 9 FROM CD1 IF NOT SKIP STEP c: CD1=ED3 + CD1 (1 + 0 = 1) d: CD2=ED2 * 2 (7 * 2 = 14) e: IF CD2 > 9 THEN SUBTRACT 9 FROM CD2 IF NOT SKIP STEP (IN THE ABOVE CASE IT IS SO 14 - 9 = 5) f: CD2=ED1 + CD2 (2 + 5 = 7) g: CD1=CD1 + CD2 (1 + 7 + 8) h: CD1=100 - CD1 (100 - 8 = 92) i: DIVIDE 10 INTO CD1 GIVING TO CD2 AND REMAINDER TO CD3 (92/10=9 WITH 2 LEFT OVER THUS CD2 GETS THE 9. WHILE CD3 GETS THE 2) j: CD3=CD3 + 1 (2 + 1 = 3) k: MOVE TO NEXT STEP
STEP 4: COMPARE CD3's FINAL NUMBER TO THE BELOW CHART CD3=3
A F H J K L R T W X 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0
SO THE CHECK DIGIT FOR ENGINE 2710 IS H. WHICH IS ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
000001 000010 000002 000020* **** CALCULATE ENGINE CHECK ALPHA ****000003 000030000004 000040 CALC-CHK-ALPHA000005 000005 IF ENG-NUMBER NOT NUMERIC000006 000060 GO TO CALC-CHK-ALPHA-EXIT.000007 000070000008 000080 COMPUTE CK-DIGIT-1 = E-DIGIT-4 * 2.000009 000090 IF CK-DIGIT-1 > 9000010 000100 SUBTRACT 9 FROM CK-DIGIT-1.000011 000110 ADD E-DIGIT-3 TO CK-DIGIT-1.000012 000120 000013 000130 COMPUTE CK-DIGIT-2 = E-DIGIT-2 * 2.000014 000140 IF CK-DIGIT-2 > 9000015 000150 SUBTRACT 9 FROM CK-DIGIT-2.000016 000160 ADD E-DIGIT-1 TO CK-DIGIT-2.000017 000170 000018 000180 COMPUTE CK-DIGIT-1 = CK-DIGIT-1 + CK-DIGIT-2.000019 000190 COMPUTE CK-DIGIT-1 = 100 - CK-DIGIT-1.000020 000200 DIVIDE 10 INTO CK-DIGIT-1000021 000210 GIVING CK-DIGIT-2 REMAINDER CK-DIGIT-3.000022 000220 ADD 1 TO CK-DIGIT-3.000023 000230 MOVE CHECK-ALPHA-ENTRY (CK-DIGIT-3) TO CHECK-ALPHA.000024 000240 CALC-CHK-ALPHA-EXIT.000025 000250 EXIT.000026 000260
Anthony, your accusatory tone isn't appreciated. Nevertheless, I'll explain.
If engine no. 1234 was to lead an extra (not-in-timetable) train, the train would be identified as "X1234" and for certain the Southern Pacific Railroad would have "X1234 on the number boards. Scheduled trains would have the train numbe on the number boardsr, regardless of the locomotive's number.
i think what some people may be missing is that the train i/d boards on up and sp locomotives were like the price signs at gas stations and the numbers could be changed to reflect the identity of the train the loco was being used on. the regular engine numbers were permanent and stayed the same regardless of the train i/d.
grizlump
It's interesting how much difference there can be between two same-numbered locomotives on two different railroads. For example, the 57 on the CSX is a General Electric AC4400CW, one of their most powerful locos, while on the Florida Central, the 57 is a small EMD GP7.
dehusmanWhat matters is not the number, but the intitials and number. So it doesn't matter if the the numbers duplicate as long as they have different initials.
Here's a good example that really highlights the importance of getting the reporting marks right:
UPY 598 vs. UP 598: