What are rules for Railroads when numbering locomotives thanks
~ Tim .
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Individual railroads write their own rules/schemes for numbering their locomotives.
There are no rules other than the reporting marks have to belong to the owner and the number has to be 6 digits or less. Most N American engines are 4 or fewer digits, but there isn't a rule requiring it.
Each railroad numbers its engines as it sees fit and can renumber them as they want, when they want. There is no set pattern of how railroads number engines.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
Thanks to all
There was a rule put in maybe in the 1940's that a railroad (or private company's) reporting marks had to be four letters or less. Reporting marks ending in X show the car isn't in general revenue service and is often in a lease arrangement.
That doesn't really apply to engines, which normally carry the railroad name written out, or it's full initials.
wjstix Reporting marks ending in X show the car isn't in general revenue service and is often in a lease arrangement.
Reporting marks ending in X show the car isn't in general revenue service and is often in a lease arrangement.
Reporting marks ending in X mean the equipment isn't owned by a railroad but a private owner.
They can definitely be in general revenue service (RBOX, GONX, TTX)
Actually it does, because the ID in the equipment register is a 4 character or less apha portion, a 6 digit or less numeric portion, and if the engine is not owned by a railroad the intials end in X.
It depends on the railroad. Some assign a block of numbers to a certain class. The Prr had engine numbers of 10000 and higher during the transition era. Originally steam engine numbers were assigned to divisions in no order so 2347 could be 4-6-2 and 2348 a 2-10-0. 9999 was originally a 2-8-0 and lastly an.SD 40. Very small railroad usually used consecutive numbering as engines were bought or retired.
Thanks to all but one question a small regional railroad could just use a number like 44 or 11 ? thanks again
Sure. Particularly if purchased secondhand and it had that number upon arrival.
They could use any number between 1 and 999999. Your choice.
A stated by nbdprr railroads often numbered locomotives by class, but the "class" of a locomotive type could be different on different railroads.
The Western Pacific for instance:
Initially (through 1951), 3 digit numbers related to the locomotives service.
Switchers 500's (EMC-SW1, Alco -S1, S2, S4, Baldwin VO1000) and 600's (SW9 and NW2)
Passenger (F3 and FP7) 800's
Freight (FT and F7) 900's with the reductions in passenger service most remaining passenger units (F3 and FP7) were renumbered into the 900's
Freight (GP7 and GP9) 700's
In 1959 the WP started using 4 digit numbers for new locos, but did not renumber the older locos. I have read that the number for each type is related to horsepower, but do not know if that is correct.
Switcher (SW1500) 1500's
Freight (GP20) 2000's, (U23B) 2200's, (GP35) 3000's, (U30B) 3000's, (GP40) 3500's
I tried to sell my two cents worth, but no one would give me a plug nickel for it.
I don't have a leg to stand on.
Thanks this helps a lot so you all are saying that railroads number them what they want to .
Some common schemes:
By service - switchers 100-500, freight 1000-1500, passenger 2000-2500
By model - GP40 400-499, GP50 -500-599, GP60 600-699, SD40 1000-1499
By horsepower - GP18 1800-1849, GP40 3000-3099, SD40 3100-3199, SD45 3600-3699
By year purchased/built (small fleets) - 1956, 1962, 1975, 1977
By order purchased/built - 1,2,3,4,5,
All sorts of options.
Have any railroads ever named their loco's instead of using numbers?
Springfield PA
Wow, Google is your friend
Turns out the UP once used names for their loco's
http://utahrails.net/steam/up01-named-1864-1867.php
Yes back in the 1800's.
After train orders became common the engines were numbered. Some roads "name" their engines (famous people, employees, cities they serve, etc) but the name is only used for publicity, its not really used by the railroad for anything having to do with operations. The engine is offiially identified by number.
dehusman wjstix: Reporting marks ending in X show the car isn't in general revenue service and is often in a lease arrangement. Reporting marks ending in X mean the equipment isn't owned by a railroad but a private owner. They can definitely be in general revenue service (RBOX, GONX, TTX) That doesn't really apply to engines, which normally carry the railroad name written out, or it's full initials. Actually it does, because the ID in the equipment register is a 4 character or less apha portion, a 6 digit or less numeric portion, and if the engine is not owned by a railroad the intials end in X.
wjstix: Reporting marks ending in X show the car isn't in general revenue service and is often in a lease arrangement.
By "general revenue service" I meant that cars like reefers normally are operated from point A to point B and back. A Hershey's Chocolate billboard reefer normally wouldn't be seen carrying fruit or meat on the west coast.
I would guess the majority - probably vast majority - of cars in a typical freight train with reporting marks ending in X were in a lease agreement. Virtually all reefer cars not on company ice service were leased...particularly since the government required the railroads to divest themselves of their reefer lines, so technically Burlington Refrigerator Express (BREX) was a separate company from the CB&Q.
It could be in recent years engines have had to have reporting marks somewhere on them. But generally a steam or diesel engine wouldn't, unless it happened that the railroad's initials and reporting marks were the same.
wjstix By "general revenue service" I meant that cars like reefers normally are operated from point A to point B and back. A Hershey's Chocolate billboard reefer normally wouldn't be seen carrying fruit or meat on the west coast.
But that's not what the X means. It has nothing to do with whether they are in leased service or assigned service. It means the car is not owned or operated by a railroad.
A car with HERX reporting marks might not be leased, it might be owned by Hershey's.
There are thousands of engines and cars operating out there that are leased but operate with railroad initials and don't have an X.
A car may also be operated exclusively between two points but not end in the letter X. The RDG had a series fo hoppers modified to be gons exclusively for handling iron ore taconite pellets between Grace Mine and Bethlehem, but they had RDG reporting marks. There are lots of auto parts cars that are equipped exclusively to handle certain traffic between certain O-D pairs but have railroad initials and do not end in X.
I would guess the majority - probably vast majority - of cars in a typical freight train with reporting marks ending in X were in a lease agreement. Virtually all reefer cars not on company ice service were leased.
The two biggest reefer fleets were SFRD and PFE, both railroad owned and those reefers weren't leased, they were owned by the railroads. Many meat reefers were owned by the packing companies, so they weren't leased.
There is a subset of cars that are leased cars in assigned service and are private owner cars (initials end in X). There are private owner cars that are in general service. There are leased cars in general service. There are railroad cars ( no X) in assigned service.
Particularly since the government required the railroads to divest themselves of their reefer lines, so technically Burlington Refrigerator Express (BREX) was a separate company from the CB&Q.
Never heard that . The UP and SP owned PFE as a wholy owned subsidiary right up until they split it into UPFE and SPFE in the 1990's. The MP owned all or part of ART and the UP continues to utilize the reporting marks, to this day (all those rebuilt UP reefers are ARMH , an ART initial, with UP shields on them).
The rules regarding reporting marks have changed over the years. Once railroads started interchanging engines, identifying engines by reporting marks became critical. Rule books require "foreign" engines to be identified by initial and number while home road engines by engine number. So if the MP 2001 is meeting a train with UP 2001 on it on the MP the order would read :
Extra 2001 East meet Extra UP 2001 west at Anna.
Most steam engines did have the road's initials or the name of the railroad on it.
Once computers started being used the equipment intitial/number question became even more thorny since computers like consistency. A company in the UK used a computer system built for US roads. There was all sorts of interesting correspondence because the UK and European equipment could have more than 6 digits in the number and might not have any initials.
What I did on my freelance Allegheny Ralroad was to number diesels with four digits based on their manufacturers designation for the first two numbers and two additional numbers for the rest So a GP30 became 3001 and up. Some engines I would use higher numbers. Say I had two GP35s I would number them 3512 and 3520 indicating the railroad had at least twenty GP35 engines even though I only had two.
Reading the magazine Classic Trains I notice that many locos sold on to smaller, short line type railroads often kept their original roads number. This is fine for a modelers of such a line.
Regarding naming, I notice some locos in the United States have carried a names but in the UK it has been a very common occurrence.
Alan, Oliver & North Fork Railroad
https://www.buckfast.org.uk/
If you don't know where you are going, any road will take you there. Lewis Carroll English author & recreational mathematician (1832 - 1898)
Great Western Regarding naming, I notice some locos in the United States have carried a names but in the UK it has been a very common occurrence.
Early railroads pre-1870 named almost all their engines. The Philadephia & Reading had hundreds of "gunboat" class 4-6-0's that were named for Civil War gunboats. Switchers were named for small mammals (Mink, Fox, Wharf Rat, Ermine, etc). One of the "Golden Spike" engines was the Jupiter.
When train orders became common, engine names went away. They didn't work as well.
Extra Antiedem Creek West meet No 405 Eng Pittsburgh at Lenape
vs.
Extra 346 West meet No 405 Eng 207 at Lenape
I seem to recall that the Virginia and Truckee used both names AND numbers on their early locos.
OTOH, the Richmond, Fredericsburg and Potomac named (as well as numbered) their last 4-8-4 locomotives - after famous Virginia governors, generals and statesmen.
Innumerable early short lines had a Number 1 - and were never long-lived or prosperous enough to acquire a Number 2.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - where locomotive numbers were alpha-numeric and included the class.designator)