When I first started Model Railroading, I had an F7 my dad gave to me and a few cars. I numbered the F7 4725, my 2 favorite numbers. Then I got an SW1000 #3915. Next SD45 #5231, rs11 #4120, A U28B I rebuilt without a cab #4130, and GP9M #4110. I figured road diesels would be 52**, Road switchers 41**, passenger engines 47**, and swithchers 39**. I’m starting to think that that is not a very good numbering system. What do you all think?
It depends on how large you are pretending the KBC fleet is.
If it is a tiny railroad then the numbering scheme is no problem, but then why would they be using four digit numbers?!
If it is supposed to be a big railroad with a lot of locomotives that scheme would be entirely too restrictive.
Most big railroad number the locomotives by purchase lots, or types of locomotives. That is something like all F units are numbered in the 100-199 range, GPs 400-399 range, etc. Or if it is a bigger railroad all F units are numbered 1xxx, with FTs being 11xx, F3s 12xx, F7s 13xx. etc. Some railroads used three digits for steam and four digits for diesels. Santa Fe’s early Diesels had two digit numbers and a letter. One could regularly find the Super Chief behind E6s #13L & #13A (had to get that in here since its Friday the 13th). GN switcher locomotives carried two digit numbers.
Even real railroads struggled with meaningful numbering schemes and they often went through “renumbering programs”. Even more so with mergers. The BN railroad had just finished renumbering from the original GN, NP, CB&Q, SP&S, C&S merger when they bought the Frisco. Ooops, renumbering time again!
The numbering system is fine. But if you have ever More than one of the same loco then go with a series. An example would be WC. They had alot of SD45s, so they had a couple Series. they had the 76XX series, the 75XX series, ect., ect. So I would think in the future if you are going to expand, have the locos different numbers. But you can always re number them if you expand. So your system would work.
Almost thirty years ago I formulated a history of the Chesapeake and Carolina Southern Railway, a Class I running from the Chesapeake Bay down the Piedmont to the South Atlantic and Gulf States; when I was done with that I went on to formulated a transition era locomotive roster to go along with that history. I did this so I could/would have a logical circa 1955 numbering scheme for my motive power. Locomotives had been acquired in certain years and as such had been assigned certain blocks of numbers. I had, believe it or not, gone through two renumbering schemes to bring things up to date. The last of these renumberings had been immediately post-WWII and had been done to release numbers 1-999 for use by the emerging diesel acquisitions. A number of prominent (model) railroaders have done this same thing.
I was working in HO Scale at that time and had a substantial fleet of die-cast locomotives to which I had given hodge-podge numbers as I had built them. My numbering scheme was not oriented around my current locomotive numbers and when I looked up almost all - perhaps it was even all - of my fleet was going to require renumbering, which, by the way, I never did get around to.
This whole thing became moot when I bolted from HO Scale to N Scale and, with fewer steam locomotives available, I began building a diesel locomotive fleet; my railroad became the Seaboard and Western Virginia Railroad, a Class I running from the Chesapeake Bay to and across the Midwest to Chicago and St. Louis. I have always wanted to model that transition era in N Scale but it has only been recently with the emergence of a significant number of steam locomotives on the market that this has become possible; if I elect to discard my all-diesel theme then I am going to have to work up another numbering scheme to fit the circa 1955 era.
No offense meant but it has always struck me as just a little hairbrained to haphazardly assign numbers to a
After I read a few Model Railroaders, I realized that I needed a story to go behind the Kramerton Railroad. I decided that it would be a Bridge line between the fictituious town of Kramerton Oregon, in the cascades, and Boise Idaho. It was origionally Great Northern, but They abandoned it. Eveentually the industries got angry and Hired a railroader to revive the line. With this in mind, I changed the KRR’s name to Kramerton Boise Central. The KBC is a fairly large railroad, but , of my few locomotives, only 5231,4725,3915, and 4120 have actually been stensilled. With THIS in mind I came up with a roster. Tell me what you think Please note that this is my FICTITIONAL roster:
3911-3915 EMD SW1000
4000-4004 EMD GP9
4120-4121 Alco RS11
4200-4200 GE BU28B
4601-4605 EMD F 9
4721-4725 EMD F 7
5001-5005 EMD SD9
5231-5235 EMD SD45
5301-5305 EMD SD40-2
The roster looks ok to me, question is, does it look ok to YOU. The best advice I can give you at this point is to do what works for you. Something that works for someone else may not work well for you.
You certainly appear to like the number 5: you have five each of SW1000s; GP9s; F9s; F7s; SD9s; SD45s; and SD40-2s.
And your roster raises a question: why, in a stable of 35 EMD lokes are you maintaining two ALCOs and a lone GE on your roster? In the early days of dieselization some railroads sampled lokes from several builders but eventually shook themselves loose of the strays and pretty well settled on one manufacturer; a lot of railroads soured on ALCO because of troubles they experienced with the 244 engine even though the 251 proved a very reliable one. Eric Brooman’s Utah Belt was all EMD until just a few years ago when, I believe, GE finally made an inroad and will probably make even more in the future. Even if you are modeling using second hand power it seems likely that management would have settled on one manufacturer in order to simplify spare parts.
One thing needs some cla
Actually, if you’ve already numbered 4 or your locos according to this scheme, it’s not really fictional any more, it’s more like PROPOSED or planned, or something like that. I’m guessing it’s a (fairly) modern day shortline, though if you moved the timeframe to the early to mid 70’s you could still justify all those first generation units, as they were recently being retired from class 1 RR’s. Southern Railway ran their F units all the way into the late 70’s, and what few GP7’s and GP9’s and SD units (they only had a few) were close to retirement.
A plausible story would go something like this: Your shortline (could be hundreds of miles, and still be a shortline) was formed in the late 60’s and picked up all those early units, on the used market. A recent traffic agreement (in your early 70’s timeframe) justified the need for some high power mainline units, so they bought the SD45&
Your story is a good place to start. It needs a little more data to fill out.
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When was the line built? What GN locomotives could have operated on it?
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When was the line spun off from GN? Could the New Owners apply to the state or some other agency as a source for capital? Could the New Owners buy or inherit some GN units for the start of operations?
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Try to determine when the units werre new. This could bump older F7’s to a lower number series than F9’s. A similar story could bump SD40 into a lower number than the SD45’s.
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You may have talented shop forces that can keep odball or older power in use longer than they lasted on the GN.
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This story can also help develop a paint scheme. Your RR may keep old units in a patched GN style scheme till the units can get rebuilt & time in the paintshop. A quick & dirty renumber job could use a combination of 2-3 numbers blanked out from their GN number.
The numbering System on my Fictional RR is based on HP. example is the SD45s are 3600HP, so they’re number 36XX. When I have engines that have the same HP such as my MP15s with my SW15s. Both have 1500HP, the older ones are the first 50 numbers and the new ones are the second 50 numbers. I don’t have 50 SW1500s and 50 MP15ACs. example is SW1500s are number 1500-1510. and the MP15ACs are 1550-1560
When I got back on to model train five or so years ago… I just numbered then in the order I bought them, at least for DCC addressing… But now, I use their road numbers for address, much easier then recalling which loco came before what…
I’ll answer your questions in order:
1: I imagine the line was built somewhere between 1890 and 1939. So probably Steam, and first generation diesels. could have run on it while it was a great northern line.
2: At 15 I’m not sure what capital is, but I imagine the line to be spun off about 1953.
3: See numbering scheme below.
4:I imagine that we do have tallented shop forces. =D
5:My Paint scheme can be viewed Here I like your thoughts though. However, I don’t have any old great Northern Models on my roster, not in KBC paint. I have an old UP GP9 though.
And here is the numbering system I ended up using:
120-121 Alco RS11
201-203 EMD F9B
301-305 EMD F 9A
400-404 EMD GP9
450-452 EMD SD9
550-555 EMD SD40-2
650-654 EMD SD45
721-725 EMD F 7A
731-735 EMD F7B
800- GE BU28B
911-915 EMD SW1000
This way, I only had to change a few numbers, or renumber
Just as a side note. The Pennsy, and subsiquently the Penn Central, numbered all their 6 axle road engines in the 6000 series. That way dispatchers could tell right away if they had big power (or heavy as it may) on the front end of a train.
Rick
This is all very interesting, and give some insight into Loco numbering.
The one thing I’ve pondered, is the numbering of freight cars. I’ve tried to make sense, for instance, of how Norfolk Southern numbers their freight cars. Can anyone shed light on this? I’ve heard that they number by type (coal gons, boxcars, autorack, etc) but also by road destination, whether they regularly run north/south or east/west. It baffles me a bit, but interests me. I’m looking to start renumbering my cars, and would like to emulate a prototype system. Does anyone have sample freight car numbering schemes or can point to prototype car numbering info?
Thanks…