Read Bill Stephens "A train with no name is just not the same" in the September 2024 issue of Trains. Names have been used in freight carriers in addition to passenger.
Chessie System in the time BEFORE I hired out in 1965 and up until the creation of CSX Transportation in 1988 used names on a large number of its scheduled freight trains. As I recall the first train order I copied when I worked my first day to establish my seniority on the Order of Railroad Telegrapher's roster at the Shops office in Washington, IN was to be delivered to the train 'The Northeastener' that was changing crews at Shops on its trip to Cincinnati and beyond to its ultimate destination of Buffalo, NY. I am not sure of the train's route beyond Cincinnati, however, I believe it ran through Washington Courthouse to Columbus and Newark to Willard and then on to New Castle and on the P&W subdivision to Eidenau and the making the turn up to what was the Buffalo Division to Buffalo.
As I progressed through my career and got the opportunity several individuals in Sales & Marketing and got into conversations about trains and their identities. Those personnel felt that having train NAMES and not numbers made it easier to relate the transportation services they were selling to the people in industry they were selling too. I don't know if there are any defined data sets that show the effectiveness of names vs. numbers, however, my own observations indicate that people more easily remember names as opposed to numbers.
When I went back to Dispatching in 1990, CSX had a number based train identification system. From the computer side, I found that both Chessie & CSX were using a four space train name and a two digit origin date identifier. However, where Chessie had the train name be up to four alpha characters, on CSX the train was identified by a leading single alpha followed by three numerics.
CSX assigned various meaning to the single alpha. The normal manifest network trains were given the letter R. The letter Y was used for Yard jobs. Each operating Division in 1988 was assigned a letter for their various local and road switcher jobs - A for Atlants Division, B for Baltimore Division, D for Detroit Division, F for Florence Division, however not everything was that 'straight forward' the letter O was used for the Tampa Division. Other individual letters were used to denote various kinds of mineral and agricultrural unit trains.
As time marched on, merchandise trains became Q for quality and as the elements of ConRail were acquired and divisions were redefined and reorganized some divisions had multiple division identifiers on their jobs.
After I retired and PSR was implemented, everything I knew about CSX train identification conventions changed - some greatly, some not so much.
I don't know how division supervision is evaluated in today's CSX, however, back when I was working On Time operation of the divisions merchandise network was a factor in each officials performance evaluation that was also tied to their compensation.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
CSX reimagined it's train identifiers a couple of years ago. Where virtually every train was a "Q" train (with the occasional X, S, P, B, and some others) the letter now makes a little more sense.
"I" is for intermodal, "M" is for manifest, "L" is for local, "G" is for grain, etc.
I'm no expert on the system, for sure, and for those who had pretty much memorized the symbols, it was almost back to square one. I say almost because some trains simply changed their letter, particularly the intermodals. Q009 became I009.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Off of what I have seen posted on line - it looks like the Divisional letter for locals has been changed to L for all locals, no matter the division, road switchers and yard jobs (either that or some yard jobs have been redesignated as locals [jobs operating on the Sparrows Point branch between what is now TradePoint Atlantic and the yard at Bayview seem to be designated with an L instead of the Y the previously had.]
Not being on the 'inside' leaves one out of the loop in understanding the nuances.
Some of our trains, because of their alphabet symbols, get informal names. Usually it involves not including the first letter that identifies the train type.
Some that have been used over the years, some still being used-others discontinued, include:
MPRCB/MCBPR, the cowboy.
MNPPR, the nipper.
MHOBO, the hobo.
MHOSS, the hoss.
Some years back, they ran an Autorack train from South St. Paul to Kansas City. SS is usually the symbol for So St Paul. Kansas City has a few different ones depending on where the train is going to in KC. The symbol proposed was ASSKS. At the meeting of union local chairmen with the carrier where the proposed signal was announced, one of them asked if they really wanted to use that. They ultimately used a different alpha symbol once the train started running.
Jeff
In the Chessie days most scheduled freights had NAMES.
Baltimorian, New Yorker, Detroiter, St. Lousian, New Englander, Northeastener, Southwestener, Dixie, Pittsburgher, Detroit Steel Special, Chicagoan, Baltimore Advanced Chicagoan, Potomac, and of course the various Trailer Jets that served Philadelphia, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, Cincinnati, St. Louis and Chicago - in the early 60's some of the Jets would work locations like Youngstown, Akron for short haul intermodal.
In talking with salesmen in the Marketing Department - they felt it was easier to sell customers on Name Train service vs. numbered trains. Not being a salesman, I will defer to their expertise.
Blame the computer for taking the fun out of it.
Miss locals like the *** (ATSF San Diego Local) ....Dey go here, Dey go dere, Dey go everywhere south of Fullerton...
Balt didn't mention the name trains of CSX precursor B&O, which included the Black Cat, Bradford Hog, Candy Run, Coal Digger, Dive Bomber, Dirty Shirt, and Peanut Run. They also had what I suspect was the most euphemistic name of all -- 'Air Line' (for service between Allegheny and Demmler, probably not as the crow flies...)
Once you have transitioned from manifest freight (where you track what is moving) to scheduled operation (where you assure the time of transit and arrival) you might as well have names as well as numbers for those trains -- just as you have names for better passenger trains. This became more significant with the rise of trucking competition, where even the mighty Rutland could inaugurate a name freight with its own streamlined steam power.
Some of the name trains were legendary -- some so legendary that they were referred to in shorthand: the Ball, the Witch, the BSM.
On the other hand, I suspect salesmen did not shorten the name of one of its Memphis trains, the Whiskey Dick.
BaltACDl In talking with salesmen in the Marketing Department - they felt it was easier to sell customers on Name Train service vs. numbered trains. Not being a salesman, I will defer to their expertise.
Probably in these days, marketing departments are tiny.
OM, you're back!!
OvermodBalt didn't mention the name trains of CSX precursor B&O, which included the Black Cat, Bradford Hog, Candy Run, Coal Digger, Dive Bomber, Dirty Shirt, and Peanut Run. They also had what I suspect was the most euphemistic name of all -- 'Air Line' (for service between Allegheny and Demmler, probably not as the crow flies...) Once you have transitioned from manifest freight (where you track what is moving) to scheduled operation (where you assure the time of transit and arrival) you might as well have names as well as numbers for those trains -- just as you have names for better passenger trains. This became more significant with the rise of trucking competition, where even the mighty Rutland could inaugurate a name freight with its own streamlined steam power. Some of the name trains were legendary -- some so legendary that they were referred to in shorthand: the Ball, the Witch, the BSM. On the other hand, I suspect salesmen did not shorten the name of one of its Memphis trains, the Whiskey Dick.
Those OM mentioned did not make it into the B&O's S&C schedule books, however, they were well known 'locals' in the areas where they operated.
For reference here's a 20 some page, February, 1952, AAR Booklet with some named freight train examples:
https://www.multimodalways.org/docs/railroads/RRorgs/AAR/AAR%20Names%20and%20Nicknames%20of%20Freight%20Trains%202-1952.pdf
Thanks to Dave Mangold.
The Cabbage Cutter? The Gas Wagon? Seems like these trains could be combined.
What would the Naked Lady be hauling? There are a couple of Dogs in there, too. Seems I've heard this name applied to quite a few trains.
Regards, Ed
When I had the CSX terrirory between Savannah and Jacksonville, which had two routes between the end points, one via Waycross and one not via Waycross. In crew utilization the first train to arrive Waycross in either direction after 0100 & 1300 was considered to be the 'Mediator' and as such would jump to be the head out crew for calls from Waycross to the other end of a run (Jacksonville or Savannah, as the case may be). I was never able to track down anyone that could explain the reason that such a local agreement became the way to do things as opposed to a normal First In, First Out type agreement.
Another unique feature of crews operating between Savannah & Jacksonville was that upon arrival in Jacksonville they also became a 'member' of a pool that operated between Jacksonville and Fitzgerald, GA. Thus a crew working into Jacksonville could be called for a run to Fitzgerald and return instead of being called back to Savannah or Waycross out of Jacksonville. Upon arrival back in Jacksonville from Fitzgerald they took their 'turn' in Jacksonville and there was no restriction from them being called for another run back to Fitzgerald. Crews could get 'trapped' from getting home for a period of time. There were designaged Fitzgerald crews in the pool with their home terminal at Fitzgerald and they could only run between Fitzgerald and Jacksonville.
Things can get 'messy' when carriers desire 'interdivisional' runs through and past former crew 'end points' and all of the 'crew districts' involved want to protect their 'percentage' of the 'new' runs. As the years add up, the original reason for such 'quirky' agreements become lost in history as no one is still around to understand the reasoning of why the agreements were written as they were.
charlie hebdo BaltACD l In talking with salesmen in the Marketing Department - they felt it was easier to sell customers on Name Train service vs. numbered trains. Not being a salesman, I will defer to their expertise. Probably in these days, marketing departments are tiny.
BaltACD l In talking with salesmen in the Marketing Department - they felt it was easier to sell customers on Name Train service vs. numbered trains. Not being a salesman, I will defer to their expertise.
My guess, in these days, is the customer does not relate to a named train. It is a grasp at a bygone era. Customers fly for travel, and in case you didn't know, airlines don't name flights either. The customer relates to the getting on the 6:00 to New York, not some silly name.
Give the arrival time at destination and price to the customer, as that is what they care about.
An "expensive model collector"
A name is just a handle, easier to remember, which actually is a marketing objective: recognition.
Really, all the customer cares about is that their shipment gets handled in an expeditious manner. Since freight service is rarely truly scheduled anymore, it's just "the railroad."
And all the customer cares about is - "Wait, stuff still gets shipped by rail? I thought trains were all gone."
tree68Really, all the customer cares about is that their shipment gets handled in an expeditious manner. Since freight service is rarely truly scheduled anymore, it's just "the railroad." And all the customer cares about is - "Wait, stuff still gets shipped by rail? I thought trains were all gone."
I am still seeing trains operating in the scheduled time slots that they were back when I was working in the days before PSR.
I came into possession of a B&O 'Schedules & Classification' book from the mid 1950's. On the routes that are still operated - the scheduled 'network' is not all that different 70 years later. With that being said - any number of customers that were 'important' back 70 years ago, no longer exist in the 21st Century.
At the time the organization I was working in was planning the operation of the Baltimore Terminal Services Center - a 'one stop' customer service 'office' for all the customers in the Baltimore area. As I recollect there were something like 1300 active customers in the mid 1970's. Many were small 'mom & pop' style organization that utilized the various Team Track facilities that existed in the terminal at that time. A number were 'big time' Corporations - that at that time you thought would continue to exist until the end of time (they didn't - Bethlehem Steel, Western Electric, General Motors Assembly Division, FMC Chemicals - and on and on) I have no real knowledge of how many customers still exist in Baltimore Terminal, but my guess would be less than 200.
The world of business marches on - activist investors, outsourcing and virturally every other 'management buzz word' that can be applied to making the USA into a 'service' economy from its history as a 'manufacturing' economy. Railroads react to the requirements of their customers - and when the customers cease to exist there are big holes to be filled.
Really, most train service schedules are more for the benefit of the operating department rather than the sales, or to be more modern - the marketing department. The premium intermodal services are probably the only ones used for customers. And then only when service commitment deadlines (the container/trailer will be available for pickup on D day at H hour or it's free, etc.) are being figured.
Service schedules for regular trains (regular intermodal and manifest) and those for irregular trains (unit trains and special moves) benefit the railroad. It allows plans on how to deploy or allot crews and equipment. I mentioned on another thread that I had a 30 car manifest the other day. 13 loads 17 empties our of the originating yard. While both loads and empties are important to customers waiting for them, I'm sure the railroad would rather not run a train like that. It ran because if it didn't, the service plan downstream suffers. It means 30 cars takes up room in a yard. Two engines that will be needed elsewhere are stranded. And cars scheduled to the train downstream (my train was anticipated to pick-up 40 plus cars down the road.) either are stranded or need to be rescheduled to another train, if there is one.
It should be noted that service schedules and planning are nothing new. It predates PSR, which is more of molding customers to service plans, rather than molding service schedules to customer's needs.
charlie hebdo A name is just a handle, easier to remember, which actually is a marketing objective: recognition.
And yet, what transportation uses a name to identify it besides passenger rail? Trucks, nope. Airlines, nope? That should tell you the lack of importance of a name.
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