I would like too know the significance of Road numbers, and their importance too Train lovers like ourselves, and what these numbers mean?
I assume you mean the numbers found on the sides, ends and sometimes roofs of railroad locomotives and cars. I modified an N scale commercial model to resemble AT&SF #563, a Fairbanks Morse switcher.
AT&SF is the roadname, the owner, Atchison Topeka and Santa Fe Rwy, and 563 the road number, which identifies the particular locomotive.
To understand the importance to train lovers, it helps to understand the importance to real railroads. If your family has three vehicles, a sedan, a sports cars and an SUV, you have no difficulty telling which one is which. But Santa Fe had not quite 60 of these switchers, almost alike, numbered 503 to 564. This group of engines was called (on THIS railroad) the 503 class, after the lowest numbered engine in the group. Calling an engine a member of the 503 class is quicker than saying it is a Fairbanks Morse switcher, model H-12-44… but only for someone who knows the railroad’s roster of locomotives.
The numbers help a railroad keep up with what loco is assigned to a particular yard or run, what loco an engineer is supposed to run on a particular day, and to keep track of loco performance for maintenance purposes. If a loco is assigned to pull a non-scheduled “extra” train outside yard limits, that train would be identified as “Extra 563 West” (or whatever direction) based on the road number of the lead engine.
I said Santa Fe had about 60 of these, ALMOST alike. But not quite. About the first 20 or 30 of them had an overhung cab roof behind the cab. Higher numbers lacked this overhang. When I detailed this model, I checked photos to find the specific locomotive that most closely matched what I had or could easily make in my model. Some modelers might want to go to the extra effort to
An interesting reply, but of course there is more to it than just that.
The Letters of the railroad (or other owner) and the number of the car make up the car’s ID number. A license plate if you will., When the car goes off line (onto another railroad) The home road collects fees from every railroad that uses that car until it comes home again. If it needs repairs then the railroad who has the car at that moment will make the repairs and bill the costs back to the home road.
On NYCT, we seldom see the road name, as all subway cars are captive to the system that owns them. NYCT does have locomotives with the NYCT letters on them as well as some MOW cars. Sometimes this equipment is loaned out to other MTA railroads.
Foamers on the subway know what road numbers belong to what class of cars, when and where they were built, and some of their quirks that they watch out for.
On my layout the numbers serve the same purpose, the keeping of maintenance records and the recording of train movements which are recorded by time location and lead motor number. Only the terminals record the train numbers as in “Pelham 123” which would have left Pelham Park at 0123 in the morning since the afternoon train would be Pelham 1323 which would not have sounded as good in the movie.
I do log my train movements during operating sessions (like I have yet to hold one) but then there is nothing else for me to do while the trains are running.
ROAR
OK, first and foremost, the road numbers UNIQUELY identify equipment.
There are two parts to an engine or car’s ID number.
First is the reporting mark. This is a 2-4 letter code that identifies the owner of the car. Some railroads and companies have multiple reporting marks, either as a result of mergers and buyouts of other railroads, or additional marks used to designate cars to specific purposes. Private company (non-railroad) reporting marks always end in “X”. (This is why CSX’s reporting mark is actually CSXT.)
Next is the number. This needs to be unique withing the reporting mark to identify the car. (For example, there can be an ABC 1234 and an XYZ 1234, but there cannot exist two cars numbered ABC 1234 at the same time. Otherwise how do you tell them apart?)
To illustrate this clearly, take this car:
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cn388608&o=cn
This is one of a build lot of one THOUSAND identical cars built for Canadian National in 1995. If I’m shipping 100 tons of grain in this car, the railroad has to be sure that this car, and not one of the other 999, properly ends up at the correct destination. To do that, each car must be able to be individually tracked.
The reporting marks are all registered with the AAR (Association of American Railroads). The actual numbering systems used by the car owners varies wildly.
A little more about the importance of having a unique identifier for each locomotive and car.
Rolling stock is subject to mandatory inspections, some Federal, some required by the specific railroad’s mechanical department. As you might expect, in years past each road number had an associated file folder full of inspection reports, repair orders and so forth. (These days the data is still there, but in electronic form.) Without a unique identification for every car, how would the file clerks determine which report belonged in which folder? In case of mishap, the absence of a required report might result in adverse judgements in civil suits and whopping Federal fines for non-compliance.
My favorite Nagano-ken logger had about two thousand little disconnect trucks, about the size of warehouse dollies and as alike as a line of peppermint Life-Savers. Every one had a number…
Aside to Lion. I seem to recall that NYC subway cars had the car number inside, over each end door, about 2.5 inches high…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Yup, that is about where they are. Actually I think that they are on the wall to the right of the storm doors. They are also on the outside of the cars at each end of each car on both sides. They are also inside the operator’s cab, but it seems that the operators have also written the number with magic markers in a place where they can see the number while they are operating the train.
Also on the NYCT, each and every signal has a bar code that must be scanned when the signal is inspected. It was a big scandal to discover that inspectors had photocopies of these bar codes in their possession so that they could scan in the number without actually going out on the railroad. They claimed that the bar codes on the signals were too dirty to scan, and many were flat out missing. Still their quota of inspections was far greater than what was physically possible, but they still had to meet their quotas. Investigations after the fact turned up zero defects in the signal system.
On all other equipment (not on the subways) there is a plastic wart with an RFID chip inside so that as cars ride past the detectors they are each and every one of the logged.
very early (1830s) steam locomotives were given names like ships. As the number of locos grew, this became intractable.
ANother reason for a unique ID of each locomotive is so the RR can keep track of what happens when the loco goes to the shop. What repairs are made, and if any changes are made. For instance, my Maine Central Steam Locomotives book (out of print), has copies of the MEC shop drawings for each class of steamer. Many drawings have information crossed out and info added for a particular loco as the shop replaces parts that are damaged or worn out. It is important for planning the next shop maintenance cycle to know, for instance, if the air compressor that was factory installed and standard fro the class, has been replaced with another make of model compressor.
The same applies to diesels. All MEC GP-7s came with high short hoods, but a number were rebuilt with low short hoods and more modern controls in the cab in later years. The U-25s that MEC bought from the bankrupt RI, were all in bad shape. The worst ones were canabalized for parts to rebuild the better ones, then scrapped. Some were repainted in MEC yellow and green, but many were just given a patch job and went on the road in RI colors and MEC identification. The accountants would need to know which were scrapped and which were running for counting the depreciation on the capital equipment. The tax man always needs to know!
In the modeling world, DCC users generally assign their locomotive road numbers as the decoder address.