Has any railroad ever given any of their locomotives five digit road numbers? I guess the reason I’ve never seen any engine with a 10,000 or above road number is that it would be tough to squeeze five digits onto the numboards. Not to mention that the Class 1 railroads seem to have enough empty slots to give new locos. Though it would have been consistant if BNSF gave their SD70MACs built after #9999 10,000 series numbers instead of the 8800-8900 series. The railroads probably won’t run into the problem of having more engines than 4 digit numbers unless if their’s a mega Class 1 merger.
Baldwin used construction numbers as road numbers for prototypes for advanced locomotives, steam and later, diesels, like 58501, an unsuccessful prototype. PRR is the only road I know of to use numbers over 10000 as a matter of normal procedure. Those engines were usually due for retirement by the time they got numbers like that. Now, in the U.K. numbers over 10000 were the norm.
For openers, NdeM and Wabash/N&W/UP with “B” units (ex- the Wabash C-425’s with gutted cabs)
The Mexican national railroad,in its last years before privitization started using five digit numbers on its diesels.
Here’s a thought.After the next mega merger,the surviving railroad could use an alpha system (ABCD) instead of (1234).
This would better than double the available slots to “number” thier locos.I realize that some letter combinations could not be used, but they would still be way ahead in available slots.
Found some pics of Mexican railroad SD40-2s and a GE B23-7 with 5 digit numbers, taken back in the late 80s.
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ndem/ndem13044abp.jpg
http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/ndem/ndem12010aev.jpg
Even just using a single alpha with three digits would increase the potential combinations from 10,000 to 26,000. And using an alpha would require much less effort on the software engineering end than going to five digits would require.
US roads are limited to 4 digit locomotive numbers, due to limitations in the railroads computer software. That’s why UP has two sets of reporting markings for it’s fleet. UP for road units, and UPY for yard units.
Alpha characters cannot be used in unit numbers, to avoid confusion with the unit’s reporting markings.
Nick
How do railroads keep track of their rolling stock rosters since most freight cars have numbers in the 100,000s?
You are mistaken. UP’s TCS allows for 4 alpha characters and 6 numeric digits in the equipment ID. Dave H.
It’s a sort of a artifical barrier. Cars have 5 and 6 digit numbers, locomotives have 4 digit numbers…so the system automatically knows which is which just by the number.
Nick
Britain currently uses 5 digits for all locomotives (certain exceptions on the tourist lines.) The first 2 digits are the class, the last 3 are a sequence number although the 3rd number may be a sub-class. The first digit of the class is a power classification.
In 1923 the LMS used numbers over 10000 for some of the non-standard locomotives, usually Scottish ones.
When the railways were nationalized in 1948, they added 30000 to Southern locos, 40000 to LMS, and 60000 to LNER. BR’s own build were numbered in 70000, 80000 and 90000.
Sorry. No. 6 digit numbers are permitted. Dave H.
Sorry, Mudchicken. The Wabash engines with “gutted cabs” were not C-425s but C-424s. The Wabash numbered them in the 900 series, and after the N&W took over they added the customary “3” to the front to make them 3900s.
Oh, and the cabs weren’t really gutted. They just didn’t have toilets and so were not used as lead units.
Ol’ Ed
The UMLER system will only allow 4 digits for locomotives, 6 for freight cars. That is part of the reason the big roads keep the fallen flag reporting marks in use.
The UMLER standards are available on the web as a pdf document . If you check page 83 you will see that UMLER allows 6 digit locomotive numbers.
“EXAMPLE : Locomotive number 123, report 000123”
So instead of prohibiting 6 digit numbers, all engine numbers are REQUIRED to be entered as 6 digit numbers.
Dave H.
Thank you for clearing that up. I ought to remember that, since I get error notes back when I forget the seemingly redundant zeros when reporting cars available after unloading them![B)][%-)][banghead][D)]
Since you did not limit your statement by nationality, Japan had a LOT of five-numeric-digit locomotive numbers, plus a large handful with six digits.
Of course, the first two digits (and the preceding letter, which indicated the number of driver axles) identifies the class. On the brass number plate there was no gap between the class number and the unit number within class Thus:
- B201 First unit of the B20 class, 0-4-0T shop switcher.
- C5036 36th unit of the C50 class, 2-6-0 light passenger engine with tender.
- C11105 105th unit of the C11 class, 2-6-4T dual service branchline loco (currently in tourist service on the Otaru Railway.)
- D511022 1022nd unit of the D51 class, 2-8-2.
If there are two letters before the first numerical character, it isn’t a steam locomotive:
- DD13253 253rd unit of the DD13 class, B-B diesel-hydraulic center cab hood unit.
- EF5828 28th unit of the EF58 class, 2-Co+Co-2 streamlined 1500vdc catenary motor.
- EF81155 155th unit of the EF81 class, Bo-Bo-Bo “rounded-off box cab” tri-voltage catenary motor (1500VDC, 25KV50hzAC, 25KV60hzAC, the “run anywhere” motor.)
Between 1950 and 1975, Japan switched from steam to catenary, leaving only the lightly-traveled lines (and yard switching) for diesels.
Chuck