Numbering systems

[KBCpresident]

Do railroads ever get confused with the numbering systems. I mean if a locomotive has the number 4134 and a covered hopper has the same number, how dopeople on the radio know weather they are talking about the car or the engine. Do railroads ever assign the same number to different kinds of equiptment ? How do they tell them appart?

[CShaveRR]

Nowadays, it's avoided.

However, when I hired out, it was possible to have no fewer than three pieces of equipment bearing the same number on the C&NW:  a locomotive, a box car, and a commuter coach.  The conflict (if there was one) eventually resolved itself:  locomotive and box car were retired, and Metra eventually received and renumbered the passenger equipment.

It was in the early 1980s that the C&O finally decided to eliminate a conflict between numbers of some locomotives and freight cars:  although a human could tell the difference between a U23B and an Airslide covered hopper, apparently the computer couldn't.  So the Airslides remaining in series 2300-2329 were renumbered higher in the 2300s.

The Union Pacific resolved some numbering conflicts back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, when freight cars carrying numbers with four or fewer digits were given five-digit numbers.  This could have resolved conflicts between locomotives or passenger cars, or both.

In the late 1960s, the Missouri Pacific system killed several birds with one stone by renumbering all of its freight cars:  each type of car was given a different group of six-digit numbers, taking some of them out of the four-digit range where they may or may not have conflicted with locomotives or passenger equipment, and it provided room for cars obtained in the mergers of T&P, C&EI, etc.

I think computer systems may have required changes that good old common sense didn't require.

[dehusman]

Do railroads ever get confused with the numbering systems. I mean if a locomotive has the number 4134 and a covered hopper has the same number, how dopeople on the radio know weather they are talking about the car or the engine.

Generally speaking, if you call a railcar on the radio, it won't answer.

Do railroads ever assign the same number to different kinds of equiptment ? How do they tell them appart?

Engines are the big things that move by themselves that pull cars and go on the front of the train, cars are the things that are pulled and go behind the engines.

The thing that required equipment to have unique numbers was the computer.  In order for a computer to track things it has to have a unique indentifier, the car initial and number were that identifier.  With AEI its even more important.

Seriously, since the context in which car and engine numbers are used are different, the chances of getting them mixed up, other than computer records, is minimal.

Dave H.

[henry6]

Do railroads ever get confused with the numbering systems. I mean if a locomotive has the number 4134 and a covered hopper has the same number, how dopeople on the radio know weather they are talking about the car or the engine. Do railroads ever assign the same number to different kinds of equiptment ? How do they tell them appart?

 

Are you implying that rairoaders don't know what they are talking about?  

[KBCpresident]

Not intentionally. I'm just trying to number my model railroads freight cars, and I don't know weather to use 4 and 5 digits, or 5 and 6. Tony Koester used 4 and 5, and I'm looking to the AM for ideas.

[dehusman]

However you want to do it.  More numbers = more options.  Just remember real railroads tend to buy/lease cars in groups.  They don't get 2 covered hoppers, they get 200 or 1000 or 5000.  Number in groups.

Dave H.

[Anonymous]

My locos are in a 4-number series, and my freightcars are in the 6 digit series...

Also, the odds of a piece of rolling stock and a locomotive with matching numbers from the same RR on the same train or in the same territory are minimal...  Wouldn't they note the car type and/or roadname over the radio?

[KBCpresident]

So for example if mi 40' Hi-Cube Boxcars are 4500, and I have 2, should I number them 4500 and 4501, or , oh say, 4500 and 4523 to make it seem like I have more than I do?

[dehusman]

4500 and 4523.

Dave H.