EMT 158 easy question

[ANDYS]

Nice easy question so can some kind soul put my mind at rest.

EMT 158's have a number '2' or '7' on their ends. What does it mean?

 

[MCR247]

It refers to the carriage number. Each 158 consists of a 52xxx and a 57xxx carriage number, with the xxx refering to the train number ie 158801.

 

[ANDYS]

MCR247

thanks for the very quick answer. I had never thought it was as simple as that.

 

[AlexS]

In theory it helps rail staff recognise which carriage the disabled accomodation/cycle spaces are in at a glance as the trains arrive.

 

[starrymarkb]

It refers to the carriage number. Each 158 consists of a 52xxx and a 57xxx carriage number, with the xxx refering to the train number ie 158801.

Apart from 158801 now being a 159 with SWT

 

[MCR247]

Well that part was just generally referring to 158s

 

[whhistle]

Why 2 and 7 though?
Why not just 1 and 2?

 

[jopsuk]

because the carriage number ranges allocated were 52xxx and 57xxx- it sort of makes sense therefore to refer to one as a "2" carraige and the other as a "7" carriage.

 

[whhistle]

Any particular reason why the carriages were given those numbers, again why not 1 and 2 or 3 for a 3 coach unit.

 

[MCR247]

Because they can only use certain tops numbers? And what about every other train? How would 1, 2, 3 even work actually?

 

[Crossover]

Any particular reason why the carriages were given those numbers, again why not 1 and 2 or 3 for a 3 coach unit.

To be more helpful, I believe it is because every carriage has to be uniquely identifiable individually on the computer system.

You do sometimes get oddities within classes where a unit has coach numbers out of pattern as they'd otherwise clash with carriage numbers of other units.

 

[jopsuk]

Obviously "replacing TOPS" would be tricky now, but a better solution would have been 8-digit vehicle numbers- the first six digits would be the unit number, the last two the carriage number in the set.

 

[455driver]

What about when coaches are moved from unit to unit, the number would need to be changed which will cause all sorts of problems, think about the FGW 158s where the coaches move about regularly for maintenance purposes.

 

[AlexS]

Obviously "replacing TOPS" would be tricky now, but a better solution would have been 8-digit vehicle numbers- the first six digits would be the unit number, the last two the carriage number in the set.

It all goes back to first gen DMUs that were not generally fixed formation, the 15x and subsequent units have followed the same numbering scheme. Seems somewhat vindicated in that unit carriages have been known to change sets/be added to sets etc and you don't need to change the numbers.