Ok I am building a locomotive e roster for a free lanced railway. What should I take into consideration when numbering the locos? The railroad I am doing was an actual narrow guage railroad up until 1939 when it went out of business. Highest number on their roster was a 2-6-62t #51. Fast forward to today. I now have it as a standard guage with one of the old 2-6-6-2ts numbered at 50. I will be adding diesels to the roster. I have an alco RS3, EMD GP9, and EMD GP30 to paint and number. Being a small shoreline or regional railroad that uses old used equipment what is a good method for numbering these?
Is that the road's whole roster, or just part of it? If that's just part of it, and they have more than one of each type, then each type should have a different first digit. They might have ALCos 20, 21, 22 and 23, and GP-9s 30, 31 and 32, and GP-30s 40, 41, 42, 43, 44 and 45. If that's the whole fleet, then the usual excursion road method is to reuse the same numbers or number sequentially over the existence of the road. In the first case, the newest loco might not have the highest number. In the latter case, it will and the ALCo will be 51, the GP-9 52, and the GP-30 53. Just because they only have four locomotives and reuse numbers does not mean all the numbers will be between one and four. Some roads add a hundred, or fifty, or whatever to their numbers to make themselves seem a little less pitiful.
I have more locos sitting in the sidelines to be worked on. I have two MDC roundhouse locos that are Alcos as well that I would like to add and get up running. Something I thought about since the railroads original engines were all steam rostered at numbers 1,2,11,11,12,20,21,40,50,51 (may have been others gotta look them up) I thought maybe since these are diesel I could add a 1 in front and start at 150, 151,152 for the Alcos. I will only have about 5 or 6 engines for this small road.
Something to think on for sure. I may scrap the 100 series idea and back down to double digits. I like the idea of different models having a number series.
How many locos does this fictional road have (not how many do you plan to buy, how many does the fiction say it has) I see a mix of vendors aka, EMD and Alco. For sure each model will represent it's own class. In modern times, where EMD pretty well dominates this market, horsepower might define class. For example, on the PNWR, all the GP39-2s are in the 2300 series, because they make 2300HP. Other things to consider if you want to get more involved. If the roster is large enough, a specific model might have multiple classes if they were purchased in different blocks. So for example the 100 series might be GP60s bought in 1989, the 200s are GP60s bought in 1991. Also, when thinking about that kind of thing is phase differences. Take the GP9. Maybe the railroad has a F earlier models and a few late models with the larger fans. Those might be split into two classes.
CNR numbered its diesels, back in the 60s-70s, according to builder and number of axles. For example, the 2000 series was 6-axle Alc0/MLW power (and some 4 and 6 axle FM/CLC). The 3000 series was 4-axle Alco/MLW. The 4000 series was 4-axle EMD. The 5000 series was 6-axle EMD. etc... You get my drift. But CN had a whole lot more motive power!
On my freelance railroad, the locomotives are numbered using horsepower as the first two digits. E.G. my RS3 is 1654 for 1600 hp. RSC2 1542, etc. Third and fourth digits are random.
I use the "horsepower" numbering scheme for the Minnesota International. The U18B's are in the 1800 series, the U25B's are in the 2500's and the B32-8's are in the 3200's. I have heard of some short lines numbering their loco's for the dates that they bought them. i.e. #216 for a locomtive bought in Feb. 2016.
The horsepower method is used for my AWR locomotives, also my son's (stickymonk) sister road MC, but the parent company CRRC buys secondhand locomotives and usually just patches them, keeping the unit's number as bought. (Saves changing the numberboards)
Standard gauged the Unitah? I am doing the same for the Pacific Coast....my 2-8-0 that I am using is going to be 136....the highest numbered narrow gauged loco was 110....I chose the number because it is not out of line with the road having 25 locos in 15 years if it bought and/or leased dying locos...and 136 is the cubic inches of a 1937-40 Ford V8-60
Yeah, taking and changing things up a bit. I dieselized itI am designing a new extension to my layout and it will be the Uintah. So far they will service a small town and a logging camp. I am still in design stages. I have three to five locomotives I can use on the line. One is almost ready to go. Just needs decals.
Looking at the horsepower of the engines I have that system may work out the best. I am thinking of taking the first two numbers then adding 01 on up. Alco RS-3 is rated at 1600 hp EMD GP9 is rated for 1750 EMD GP30 is rested for 2250 And the. I have an old Bachman u36b that might get pressed into service. The U36b is rated at 3600 hp. I also have an old GP40 and a few F7's, and an F9 laying around as well. Gp40 rated for 3000 hp F7 rated for 1500 hp F9 rated for 1750 hp I can have some fun with this.
You could just number them in order....the Sierra and the Apache both had their diesels numbered under 100...
I thought about doing that. Couldn't quite figure out a starting point so I thought I would ask how others did their numbering.
Well....are there going to be holes to fill? Like there should be 3 RS3's and 5 GP9's? If there are, try creating a roster of what the railroad would have....like this: RS3 52-57 GP9 58-63 GP30 64-66
If there are holes in the series, the gap probably ought to be between the steamer and the diesels. During dieselization the newest steamer was not always the last to go. But then again, many a postwar Baldwin diesel got retired before prewar EMD units did.
My freelance uses: AL for EMU/DMU, D for diesel / E for electrics First digit: # of axles (9 for DMUs) Second and third: power in KW Fourth and last: progressive D420x are repowered ALCO C420 D630x are former german series 232 (original hydraulic) and 241 (derived from former east germany 130/232) ALn 9xxx is a DMU
