Who or what makes up the individual names for trains in route. If a train was going from… let’s say Pittsburgh to Chicago, it would be PICH such & such I suppose. I just don’t understand the letters & numbers that go along with that & others without the letters.
Each railroad does it differently.
BNSF, Conrail, and UP (I think) use city intials like you’ve discribed. Tthere is a letter before the city pair, denoting the trains type/class - M for merchendies, L for local, Y for yard, TV/Q/Z for intermodal, ect. Following the city pair is a number denoting the day of the month the train originated.
CSX used a class letter and a number. Q - merchandise/intermodal, L/S second section or running on a non-schedualed day, K unit train other then grain or coal, G grain train, V coal train, etc. CSX’s numbering is somewhat arbatrary:
Q300/Q301 - Philadelphia to N,Jersey (Oak Island) - mixed freight
Q370/Q373 - Philadelphia to Cumberland - mixed freight
Q216/Q217 - Philadelphia to Cumberland - Autoracks
Q406/Q405 - Philadelphia to Waxcross - mixed freight
K206/K207 - Philadelphia to N. Jersey - trash
K276/K277 - Richmond to Oak Point - trash
and so on.
NS I’ve yet to figure out.
Nick
very true
What system did D&RGW use, something similar?
I miss the ole’ MBSMF (Memphis Blue Streak Merchandise Freight) on the SP/SSW.
On the New Haven, each yard that orginated trains had a symbol, or rather, a letter (or two), to designate it. For example:
A = Hartford
B = Boston
EW = East Walpole
G = Bay Ridge
H = Harlem River
K = Brockton / Braintree
L = Lowell
N = New Haven
O = Maybrook
P = Providence
S = Springfield
W = Worcester
Z = Hyannis
To name a freight, the NH would put the letter of the yard that originated the train, then add the letter representing the yard the train is going to, followed by a dash and a number. The numbers were there to indicate direction (East is even, West is odd) and so that multiple trains could be run from one pair of terminals.
So, say you had a train that was to go from Boston (B) to New Haven (N). Since it’s westbound, it gets an odd number. If it’s the first such train scheduled, it’s “BN-1”. If you had a second train from Boston to New Haven, it’d be “BN-3”. And so on.
Passenger trains all had just numbers. A one or two-digit number was a first class train from Boston to New York (GCT). A 3-digit number below 200 was, usually, a first class train that went from Boston to New York (Penn). A train in the 500’s would be a commuter from Boston to Greenbush, while an 800 would be from Boston to Providence (IIRC). Therefore, if you knew your timetable, you could instanly ID any train just by it’s number where it’s going to and from.
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven