Railroad Forums
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Railjourner wrote:HI, I was just wondering if someone could explain the significance of the train number? In this case H-02 (btw I saw a NS gp38 backing into BASF in Washington around 2ish today). Do all trains have them? Are they issued by the dispatchers or FRA? Does the same train number exist for any train operating between two points ie Allentown and Dover kind of like an airline flight number? Do the dispatchers and conductors use this number to identify the train when talking on the radio? How do you find out what a train's number is? Thanks guys.The number is unique to the crew. The train you saw at BASF was H65.
washingtonsecondary wrote:And there from Allentown.Railjourner wrote:HI, I was just wondering if someone could explain the significance of the train number? In this case H-02 (btw I saw a NS gp38 backing into BASF in Washington around 2ish today). Do all trains have them? Are they issued by the dispatchers or FRA? Does the same train number exist for any train operating between two points ie Allentown and Dover kind of like an airline flight number? Do the dispatchers and conductors use this number to identify the train when talking on the radio? How do you find out what a train's number is? Thanks guys.The number is unique to the crew. The train you saw at BASF was H65.
washingtonsecondary wrote:What was it brought up and used for. I thought 6 axels in dover was a no-no.I don't know NJT's official rules on 6 axle engines in Dover.... I believe they might be banned, but I am not certain... I saw a high nose Sd40-2 in Dover a few years ago, but it wasn't there long....
jmchitvt wrote:Railjourner - NS assigns the wayfreight number - "H" for Harrisburg Division - then a unique # to the home terminal for each job - CR usedYes, thank you this helps very much. After reading all the reference to various train ID numbers on this thread I became curious. Wasn't able to find much on my own I searched the net and the best I could determine at that point was that the first letter was for the division the train was operating in and the number had something to do with its direction of travel. Even number for north or east and odd for south or west. Much better informed now thanks.
WPAL and WPDO before the buyout - "W" for wayfreight, "P" for Philadelphia - then the origin station code - AL=Allentown - DO=Dover - two digit origin job # - WPAL-18, Allentown-usually Washington, Dover on Sundays, WPDO-61, WPDO-62 when there was a day and night "Dover Drill".
Hope this helps.
washingtonsecondary wrote:Saw him late yesterday returning from Hackettstown with the following consist:Sounds like the usual H02 BUFFoonery. I took some H02 photos on friday. The H02 worked the Gladstone, then went east of Summit, ran around and headed west to Morristown with the two GP38-2's, a corn syrup tank, a white tank, two box cars, and the Conrail caboose. From Morristown, the H02 headed west. During the evening, the GP38-2's were in Dover with the caboose and there were no freight cars in the yard. Here is someones of the H02 in Morristown.
Caboose Leading (yes leading) 3 cars-the 2 GP 38's-and 2 box cars behind the engines. I'm guessing he left washington this way and worked M&M's. I've never seen a road or local train run this way, it made for an intresting site.