GE C44W-OU812, EMD SD75-13.5 of course are made up models, but it used to be simpler like SD40-2 (my favorite) or GP30 which I long thought was ugly but has grown on me. I can never remember all the steam locomotive design names and which one they refer to like “northern” ?4-8-4? Can they makes model numbers simpler again?
This is the 21st Century - nothing is simple. Buckle up Buttercup, it is going to be a wild ride and will challenge your brain cells - 1st to last!
I used to be able to distinguish among lots and lots of models, and at least four or five locomotive builders.
Nowadays, “EMD”, “GE”, and “Genset” usually take care of things.
When I was a kid I knew every model and who owned what and variations in models. As I grew into adulthood my interests shifted somewhat… I still like trains but I’m nolonger fixated on all the details of the different models. It should be easier today… each builder only has one or two models. Back in the 70s there were more builders, and each builder had more choices.
Doesn’t help that with steam, the wheelset was sometimes given a different name depending on the railroad.
For example – the 4-8-4 “Northern” type was referred to as a “Niagara” on the NYC.
Though, really, it’s just a name, and referring to the type by it’s Whyte notation (4-4-0, 4-8-4, 2-8-2, etc.) works just as well.
Not really sure about (modern) diesels though … my knowledge of them runs out somewhere around the FM H-16-44 (and even then, is spotty).
A. Carl, you are way ahead of me. Now I know a diesel-electric locomotive when I see one. xxx New Paragraph xxx B. As to the 4-8-4’s owned by the NC&SL, they were called "Dixies,“Yellow Jackets”(a broad yellow stripe on the side) or “Stripes” (not as much metal to paint, so it was just a yellow stripe).
Most of the builders have rathers small product lines, with only a handful of models. The real issue is with the various and sundry rebuilding programs over the years, starting with the IC at Paducah in 1966. Most of them have come up with their own model designations which are similar to the original model.
Meh…as far as I am concerned, out west here we only have two different freight locomotives:
This thingy-wingy:
Painted in either orange or yellow or occasionally black, because thats ALL I ever see out here.
Its quite a sad thing for railfanning when the commuter trains offer a wider variety of motive power.
You younguns oughta appreciate improvement. In my day “…out west…commuter trains” meant San Francisco Peninsula service. You now have San Diego, Los Angeles, San Jose-Sacramento, Altamont Commuter Express, Albuquerque-Santa Fe, Salt Lake City, Portland, Seattle, Dallas.
Well, what did you expect when you use locomotive designations developed by “Van Hagar”
So you did NOT like the SD40 locomotive then? You do realize that the “-2” designator was applied by EMD to existing models to indicate they had upgraded internal components. Marketing ploy, more or less.
The Whyte system and individual railroad names for types of locomotives notwithstanding, many roads also had “alpha-numeric” designators for their steam locomotives.
The Pennsy K4s (and its predecessor K-2, K-2a, K-2b and K-3) was a Pacific. So was the CP “G” class, and the Southern Ps4.
The railroads did a similar thing with Diesels. NYC called the RS3 a DRSP-6a (when configured for passenger service).
The designations can really tell you something once you decipher what they are saying. ALCO’s Century series locomotives contained the series, horsepower, and number of axles (C-424 - Century, 4 axles, 2400HP).
The “F” in the F3, F7, and F9 originated with the horsepower as well (fifteen hundred). The “E” in the E units meant eighteen hundred (two 900HP prime movers). Of course the HP changed later, but the letter was set by then.
Not really true that we’re so smart and complicated that nothing is simple any more. We’re about the same imprecise bumblers we always were – just look at our elections. Rather, a lot of specialists and other people with things to sell like to “complex it up” to make themselves look smarter and more valuable.
Well, I SUPPOSE all those complicated designators make sense if you understand them. Certainly they make sense to the people who come up with them.
Personally, they make no sense to me at all. So I look at it this way…
There’s big diesels, bigger diesels, bigger-bigger diesels, dirty diesels (common), clean diesels (less common), smelly diesels (VERY common), ugly diesels (all too common).
Oh well, better than no trains to watch at all.
Same thing with computer chips… used to be simple… 8086, 80286, 80386, 80486, 80… oops change that to Pentium. then Pentium 2, Pentium 3, Pen… oh wait it is now an I2, I3, I4, I5, I7… but is that a dual core, triple core, quad core,… does it have hyper threading or not… is the I7 more powerful than the I5? Depends, by what measure is “powerful” measured in? ARGH!
As for the Whyte system for Steam Locomotive designators… Americans count wheels, Europeans count axles… thus a 2-8-4 is the same as a 142. But how do you list one that has an idler axle between drivers on the same set of cylinders?.. I have seen it listed as a 2-2-2-2-4, the first 2, the 3rd 2, and the 4 are the unpowered trucks and the 2nd and 4th numbers are connected by side rods driven from forward mounted cylinders, but you cannot tell from the “Whyte” nomenclature. The Whyte nomenclature also does not give any information as to size, shape, power, or capabilities (or does it have a booster built-in to the trailing truck… what about a booster in the tender truck?.
You can only guess that no leading truck is probably a switch engine, a 2 wheel leading truck is probably a slow freight engine and a 4 wheel leading truck is probably a fast passenger engine. But depending on the age of the loco, it might have been built for nearly any purpose or it might have been pressed into a service it was not designed to do, because the RR was short of the appropriate power, or found out that it worked well in the other service, or was repurposed to some other service because it was still usable, but not needed for the service it was purchased to do.
I don’t know if it’s that complicated…an SD-70 is just the grandson of the SD-7. Sometimes the designation will include AC or DC to tell what type of power the traction motors use.
For many GE models, the first letter tells you if it uses two-axle (B) or three-axle (C) trucks. Then there’s two numbers, the first two numbers of the engine’s horsepower. Then a “dash” designation telling you what generation electronics it’s using. A B-30-7 would have two two axle trucks, have 3000 hp., and use ‘dash 7’ generation electronics.
Starting in the 90’s a W designated a ‘wide’ cab rather than the older narrow cab/nose typical of low nose diesels. So a C-44-9W is a “dash 9” generation GE engine with two six-axle trucks, 4400 hp, and a wide or ‘comfort’ cab.
There’s some truth to that but, a Dash 2 locomotive has a vastly different electrical system than non Dash 2 units and if EMD had not applied a suffix to the model number many railroads probably would have on their own due to the differences in maintenance procedures and parts ordering…
And then there’s “Diesel” from the “Thomas the Tank Engine” stories, who introduces himself simply as “Diesel”.
“Hell-o, my name is Diesel”, he said with an oily voice…
And vsmith, I saw three of those “thingy-wingys” here in Richmond VA today. The second “thingy-wingy” you’ve got pictured. Those “Great Pumpkins” were a nice change from the CSX “thingy-wingys” I usually see.
Heritage I Dash 9-44CWs aren’t a rarity here, but are nice to see.
vsmith, do you mean an SD70ACe? My understanding is that BNSF SD70MACs are rare in the LA basin, mostly sticking to coal trains. UP has a lot of the SD70Ms, though.
Regarding the complaint by the OP, I think that steam locomotives are actually easier, following a common (Whyte) classification, unlike diesels, which has a different naming convention for each builder.
With the same specificity that applied to the Whyte system of classification for steam engines, todays diesels are ever easier - A1A - A1A; B - B; C - C
Anybody got a link to dale’s (nanimo73) breakdown from a few years back? it covered this quite well.