TOPS renumbering process

[ChiefPlanner]

Even the Dover - Dunkirque train ferries were allocated TOPS class numbers - "99" xxx I think - and the services were consisted as "trains" - including total length , brake force etc............! (there was some office in France for the consisting !)

A good number of junior staff embraced the TOPS implementation work - training and project management (no need for overpaid consultants in "one railway") , and used the experience to massively develop their career and status to very good effect.

 

[Clarence Yard]

The mystery is how, given that works overhaul intervals were still based on elapsed time, the order of classified repairs departed so much from sequential order of construction. Part of it would have been to manage workload and budgets. Collision and fire damage sometimes intervened, but I haven't identified a consistent rule for how those damage repairs impacted on classified overhaul intervals.

There are other factors at play when you look at shopping locos. Firstly, you can advance or put back individual locos in the programme depending on condition, something that goes back to steam days. I spent a good deal of time in 1979 trying (without success) to get 47410 advanced in the HGO programme because it was, at that time, more than a bit of a dog.

Secondly, the classified overhaul programme would be smoothed so as to minimise the effect on individual depots/divisions so that you didn’t have too many of one depot’s allocation of that type in for classified at any one time. When you (locally) got the shopping programme for the year, you could see what the availability effect on your fleet for that year would probably be. You also used the programme to put the detailed SP (Shop Proposal) Forms into the Regional Shopping Control at the beginning of the relevant month.

You can’t really minimise the effect of having too many in at once for unclassified repairs, except to do a depot transfer or two - that’s how I got 08813 at FP when we had a lot of our shunters in works. But if a loco got an effective classified repair as part of a major repair, it either got credited as such and reset the clock or it might get put towards the back of the shopping order and have an extended shopping periodicity in that cycle. Or it might just be left as is in the projected shopping order.

 

[Beebman]

I've just found my copy of the 1973 Ian Allan Combined Volume ABC stated as being correct to Nov/Dec 1972. The only diesel locos with TOPS numbers are the prototype HST power cars - these are shown as '41.001' and '41.002', the only loco numbers given separating dots in the book.

As for the electrics, 15 of the 50 Class 76s are shown with TOPs numbers. With the AC locos this is the situation by class:

81 - 0/22 have TOPS numbers
82 - 0/8
83 - 12/15
84 - 9/10
85 - 0/40
86 - 2/100

The 87s are all shown with TOPS numbers but they hadn't yet entered service then.

 

[Magdalia]

There are other factors at play when you look at shopping locos. Firstly, you can advance or put back individual locos in the programme depending on condition, something that goes back to steam days. I spent a good deal of time in 1979 trying (without success) to get 47410 advanced in the HGO programme because it was, at that time, more than a bit of a dog.

Secondly, the classified overhaul programme would be smoothed so as to minimise the effect on individual depots/divisions so that you didn’t have too many of one depot’s allocation of that type in for classified at any one time. When you (locally) got the shopping programme for the year, you could see what the availability effect on your fleet for that year would probably be. You also used the programme to put the detailed SP (Shop Proposal) Forms into the Regional Shopping Control at the beginning of the relevant month.

You can’t really minimise the effect of having too many in at once for unclassified repairs, except to do a depot transfer or two - that’s how I got 08813 at FP when we had a lot of our shunters in works. But if a loco got an effective classified repair as part of a major repair, it either got credited as such and reset the clock or it might get put towards the back of the shopping order and have an extended shopping periodicity in that cycle. Or it might just be left as is in the projected shopping order.

Thanks for this. How the order of classified repairs departed from sequential order is less of a mystery now.

A Clarence Yard and TOPS numbering related example is the class 31s fitted with ETH in 1971/72 for the introduction of aircon stock on the ECML. In my research I have seen documents specifying Brush Type 4s 1101-1111 to be fitted with ETH at that time but there was no similar class 31 list of locomotive numbers in those documents. The Finsbury Park locos fitted with ETH were 5589/92/96, 5605/06 and 5640/46, spread through 2 batches of tripcock fitted locomotives. They appear to be those in the right place at the right time in the classified repair cycle but I have never found anything that indicated whether there was any local input into the locomotives chosen or if it was just decided by someone at BRB CM&EE.

The only diesel locos with TOPS numbers are the prototype HST power cars - these are shown as '41.001' and '41.002', the only loco numbers given separating dots in the book.

Did anyone ever see any locomotives renumbered with what's here been called separating dots? I have seen them in written records but never found pictorial evidence.

As for the electrics, 15 of the 50 Class 76s are shown with TOPs numbers. With the AC locos this is the situation by class:

81 - 0/22 have TOPS numbers
82 - 0/8
83 - 12/15
84 - 9/10
85 - 0/40
86 - 2/100

The 87s are all shown with TOPS numbers but they hadn't yet entered service then.

Classes 83 and 84 were renumbered early because they were being returned to traffic, in time for the WCML electrification north of Weaver Junction, after a period in store.

 

[Western Sunset]

So if 1000 appeared on TOPS as such, does this make the oft-quoted "the first class member couldn't end in a zero", something of a red herring?

 

[Falcon1200]

So if 1000 appeared on TOPS as such, does this make the oft-quoted "the first class member couldn't end in a zero", something of a red herring?

Would think no, because 1000 was not a TOPS loco number; OTOH 52000 would have been, and therefore as unacceptable as 47000, for example.

 

[Western Sunset]

So how did 1000 appear on TOPS lists if that wasn't a TOPS number? Just wondering...

 

[Dunfanaghy Rd]

The attached .pdf may stir some memories!
Pat

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2023 ==

I can't help regretting that locos didn't get 6 figure numbers. The class and 3-digit number could have remained for life, just the sub-class changing according to circumstance. It would, of course, have killed the most arcane aspect of the hobby, chasing the renumberings during a loco's life!
Pat

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2023 ==

So if 1000 appeared on TOPS as such, does this make the oft-quoted "the first class member couldn't end in a zero", something of a red herring?

Continental wagon series often start with 000 (plus check digit). I always understood that it was RSL who didn't like 000, but had to lump it when registering foreign vehicles.
Pat

 

[Davester50]

Would think no, because 1000 was not a TOPS loco number; OTOH 52000 would have been, and therefore as unacceptable as 47000, for example.

Seeing as D400 became last in class, could one presume D1000 would follow the same, and be 52074?

 

[Falcon1200]

So how did 1000 appear on TOPS lists if that wasn't a TOPS number? Just wondering...

Good question! And I don't know; If the Westerns could be allocated and reported through TOPS with their existing numbers, it does beg the question of why locos had to be renumbered at all (especially given the hassle it caused us spotters at the time....)

 

[Western Sunset]

I'm sure I've seen a TOPS printout with the loco number as 1000 (or whichever Thousand you wish).

 

[xotGD]

What has always puzzled me is why classes 25 and 26 didn't have the various sub classes numbered separately.

 

[Clarence Yard]

I have always felt that the sub classes were only split out into separate number series when there was a significant difference, rather than just automatically doing it.

The not using zero as a class beginner was definitely a M&EE thing, wishing to always start a class at 1 so that the delineation between classes could not be confused. The initial xx.001 idea of referring to the number may well be the clue here.

 

[Falcon1200]

Re the Westerns, I can only think that 1000 was a simple loco number, whereas as 52000 would have been seen by TOPS as Class 52 number 0, and therefore unacceptable (in a technical sense); We normally start numbering things from 1, of which 1000 is just further on in the sequence, and don't use 0 (except for a few later-added platforms of course....)

 

[Western Sunset]

I wonder, did TOPS read numbers as consisting of one field of 5 digits, or of two fields of 2 and 3 digits? Hence, in this example, 52000 is a valid number, but 52 000 would not as the second field would just be 000.
Still a wondering...

 

[Taunton]

So if 1000 appeared on TOPS as such, does this make the oft-quoted "the first class member couldn't end in a zero", something of a red herring?

All the Southern Pacific loco fleet were on their TOPS with the original numbers, including those ending in 0, so it can't have been any feature of the computer system. Here we go with number 3000:

http://www.ssloan.net/trains/sp/sp3000_0001.jpg

 

[Gloster]

Could it have been anything to do with the fact that the pre-TOPS system, as with most numbering systems, started at 1, rather than 0? Offhand I can only think of one loco numbered 0: an industrial steam loco, possibly at a Midlands colliery.

 

[The exile]

The attached .pdf may stir some memories!
Pat

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2023 ==

I can't help regretting that locos didn't get 6 figure numbers.

Would have presumably required a massive (for then) uplift in computing capacity for little gain.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 8 Sep 2023 ==

What has always puzzled me is why classes 25 and 26 didn't have the various sub classes numbered separately.

Were there any actual operating differences - or was it purely whose equipment was used? Ie did the difference have to be obvious to anyone looking at the loco out in a yard somewhere miles from a computer terminal - or did it only matter when parts were being ordered etc?

 

[randyrippley]

Yet coaching stock on TOPS COULD be 000 e.g. the prototype HST power cars when redefined/renumbered as MU coaches

 

[theblackwatch]

Did anyone ever see any locomotives renumbered with what's here been called separating dots? I have seen them in written records but never found pictorial evidence.

The dot was, I believe, just Ian Allan's (rather odd) house style - it continued into the 1980s in some of their titles.

 

[Cowley]

So how did 1000 appear on TOPS lists if that wasn't a TOPS number? Just wondering...

Wasn’t D1000 one of the earlier withdrawals. I guess the issue wouldn’t have come up if so?

I’m sure I’ve seen a photo from the 1970s of the inside of a Hymek cab where someone had stencilled (I think) 35017 on the roof above the windscreens.

 

[Western Sunset]

The dot was, I believe, just Ian Allan's (rather odd) house style - it continued into the 1980s in some of their titles.

The application on the HST prototype power cars was thus: 41 001
A clear space between the 41 and the 001; there was no dot.

 

[Robin Edwards]

Wasn’t D1000 one of the earlier withdrawals. I guess the issue wouldn’t have come up if so?

I’m sure I’ve seen a photo from the 1970s of the inside of a Hymek cab where someone had stencilled (I think) 35017 on the roof above the windscreens.

February 1974 - certainly in the earliest batches for withdrawal. The first were 1032 & 1019 in May 1973

 

[Western Sunset]

This discussion is leading me to think that on TOPS, a loco number was actually two numbers; the class number of two digits (which remained constant) and the individual vehicle number of three digits. Hence the clear space apparent between the 41 and 001 on the first HST "loco".

 

[Beebman]

As an example of a foreign loco with a '000' number, here's a link to a photo of SBB's 460 000:
https://www.mattypsrailwaypics.com/uploads/9/3/9/5/9395206/460000-zurich-hbf-11-05-2018_1_orig.jpg

 

[xotGD]

I've always found it odd that before TOPS loco classes started with XX000. Did folk refer to D9000 as "Deltic Zero"?

 

[Clarence Yard]

The dot was, I believe, just Ian Allan's (rather odd) house style - it continued into the 1980s in some of their titles.

It was a bit more than that. The xx.xxx way of describing the number was on official documents at the very start but it never seems to have been applied - the gap being apparent on the locos.

So, given that way of thinking, you can easily see why 000 wasn’t used for first in class.

I've always found it odd that before TOPS loco classes started with XX000. Did folk refer to D9000 as "Deltic Zero"?

It was known by ER maintenance staff as “Deltic Nought” or “Number Nought”, following on the GN tradition of express engines being referred to just by their number, i.e. 60007 was “No 7” at Top Shed. Funnily enough when 4498 came to Hornsey for tyre turning in the 1980’s, the older hands said “I see we’ve got No 7 back on the patch!”

 

[theblackwatch]

It was a bit more than that. The xx.xxx way of describing the number was on official documents at the very start but it never seems to have been applied - the gap being apparent on the locos.

So, given that way of thinking, you can easily see why 000 wasn’t used for first in class.

Thanks, that's interesting to know - every day is an education! The 'gap' as you refer to it was just that, a small gap rather than a full space. I suspect there was an official distance between the two numbers, although, as with everything else, there will have been those that did not conform.

 

[ac6000cw]

I wonder who selected TOPS in the first place. Well known it was bought from Southern Pacific in the USA. Their key issue was keeping up with the whereabouts of their freight cars, and indeed other railroad cars run onto their system. If my memory serves me there were thus possibly about 2 million cars from the USA to keep track of, and in the 1960s, when it was written, most were handled by the carload in mixed freights. This was just the business that BR were getting out of in 1970; sure missing wagons were a bit of an issue, but nothing on the scale that led to the US system.

The SP version of TOPS would have had to deal with full North American 'reporting mark plus number' designators e.g. ATSF 168010. There can be 2 to 4 letters followed by a 1 to 6 digit number. (As an aside, I think if BR had wanted to keep the old loco numbers with D & E prefixes I doubt it would have been a problem handling that in TOPS as such.)

And SP never had to renumber their randomly-numbered loco classes! Which, I seem to recall and without getting out all my old Extra 2200 South magazines from the attic, started at 1 but were commonly 4 digit - they had several thousand of them.

The only time US railroads seem to renumber locos is after mergers (eventually, because the merged railroad can continue to use the old reporting marks) and sometimes when new or rebuilt locos arrive (to free up a large contiguous block for the new stuff). For example UP has many renumbered ex-C&NW, DRGW, MP, MKT, SP, SSW, WP etc. locos still in their fleet.

 

[Pit_buzzer]

The dots in the tops number definitely existed, I clearly remember seeing 83.011 in the paint shop at Doncaster, it had numbers on all 4 cabsides and the dot was actually a tiny square rather than a circle. It was a massive shock to the system of a 12 year old spotter. The other 83s and 84s in the works all had their new numbers chalked on with the dots but after very few were painted the dots disappeared and a space appeared in their place