Locomotive lettering...

[doepack]

This morning, I saw CN SD60F road number 5562 as the middle unit in a three locomotive consist on an eastbound UP manifest on the Geneva Sub. From the outside, on the engineer's side below the unit number, I saw the following in smaller letters: GF862-B. Is this some kind of manufacturer's designation? I've seen this sort of alphanumeric combination on other CN locomotives, and have always wondered what this means. Anyone that knows, feel free to edify, TIA..

[nickleinonen]

This morning, I saw CN SD60F road number 5562 as the middle unit in a three locomotive consist on an eastbound UP manifest on the Geneva Sub. From the outside, on the engineer's side below the unit number, I saw the following in smaller letters: GF862-B. Is this some kind of manufacturer's designation? I've seen this sort of alphanumeric combination on other CN locomotives, and have always wondered what this means. Anyone that knows, feel free to edify, TIA..

under the cn's power they list their classification. it most likely said GF638-B

G = GM/emd
F = freight
6 = 6 axle
38 = 3800 hp
B = update/revision/modification [from a-z]

same goes for pretty much all of cn's power

sd70 = GF640-?
sd75 = GF643-?
sd50 = GF636-?
sd40 = GF630-?
gp38 = GR420 or GH420 [r = road, h = hump]
dash8 = EF640-? [E = general electric]
dash9 = EF644-?

and some others that i don't know what the emd classification would be, but we also have the GY418 and the slugs are GY00

[Allen Hazen]

The sort of locomotive classification system Nick Leinonen describes was quite common: many railroads had systems where the first letter was the builder, the second the general type (switcher, passenger, freight...), followed by a horsepower-in-hundreds number and, if needed, a modification letter. The actual letters used, of course, varied. The Pennsylvania (and I think many other U.S. railroads) used A as the first letter of Alco diesels (ex: AP20, for the PA-1), but CN used M for MLW. And when CN, through its U.S. subsidiaries DWP and CV, owned some Schenectady-built RS-11, they got the same class designation (MR18, I think-- R for Road Switcher) as the Montreal-built RS-18, but with a different modification letter at the end (A, I think).
So also with the surviving builders. Pennsylvania and many other U.S. railroads used E for EMD and G for General Electric, and CN uses....
--
(I've been told that the Bulgarian words for Hot and Cold start with S and N, respectively, which, since Bulgarian is written in the Cyrillic alphabet, look like... C and H!)

[doepack]

Fascinating. But does anyone know why this practice was discontinued for the American based roads? It seemed like it was quite useful in providing additional basic info about the unit, other than just the model number...

[junction tower]

I can't say exactly why, but many of the roads that used these systems were bought by roads that didn't. Also remember that in the late forties to mid-fifties, roads were buying power from as many as five different builders and there were a ton of different models, built specifically for different jobs, switching, passenger, transfer, road, etc. Today, with two builders and a limited number of models and everthing being fairly universal, there isn't much need for it. The GE models are easy anyway. They tell you about all you want to know. EMD is a little trickier, GP and SD is pretty basic and then all you have to know what horsepower coresponds (sp?) with which model.

[Allen Hazen]

One bit of history relevant to the question of when and why North American railroads gave up their systems of locomotive classification.
The Penn Central, I think, continued to use the Pennsylvania system until it was absorbed into Conrail. Other railroads absorbed into Conrail had their own systems. (Lehigh Valley's, I think, was fairly similar to the Pennsylvania's-- not too surprising given the links between the two railroads. Reading had a different one.)
Rather than adopt one system of its own, Conrail decided to use builder models: SD-40, etc.
Why? I suppose it was one less thing to worry about. And the locomotive fleet was going to be simplified, making a classification system less important. (A few Baldwin's made it to the Conrail takeover, but didn't last much beyond that. Alcos-- with the exception of "Dewitt Geep" RE-3 re-engined with EMD 12-567 diesels-- were off the roster by the early 1980s.)