"TOPS" loco class classification - when did this actually start?

[AdamWW]

You've not programmed with strings in C, and then at some later date found yourself having to make the code work with strings that have nulls in?

Sure but this is written in some kind of dedicated assembler macros.

Anything to handle nulls is only there if you put it in in the first place.

As for comparison with zero being more efficient than with other values, sure, if the numbers are stored as integers rather than characters. Hard to see in that case how it could distinguish between numbers with and without leading zeros though, which it appears to be capable of.

 

[Taunton]

I believe the rule was that anything built to pre-nationalisation designs got a pre-nationalisation number.

Interesting that whatever the reason is for not wanting coach numbers to clash with loco numbers, it doesn't seem to extend to unit numbers.

In the case of the Southern electric units, where they were built in the late 1950s on recycled Southern Railway 62' underframes they were numbered in the Southern series, although being produced at Eastleigh at the same time were fully BR-standard units with Mk1 bodywork on standard 64' frames.

Regarding duplicate numbers, I have written here before about seeing, in early TOPS days at Edinburgh Waverley, Deltic 55013 alongside in a bay dmu 'bubble car' unit 55013, where both at the time were allocated to Haymarket. I wonder how the fuelling records and staff timesheets there distinguished them.

 

[Big Jumby 74]

Deltic 55013 alongside in a bay dmu 'bubble car' unit 55013, where both at the time were allocated to Haymarket. I wonder how the fuelling records and staff timesheets there distinguished them.

Good old common sense amongst those involved......said tongue in cheek as I imagine you will know that...

 

[Clarence Yard]

In the case of the Southern electric units, where they were built in the late 1950s on recycled Southern Railway 62' underframes they were numbered in the Southern series, although being produced at Eastleigh at the same time were fully BR-standard units with Mk1 bodywork on standard 64' frames.

Regarding duplicate numbers, I have written here before about seeing, in early TOPS days at Edinburgh Waverley, Deltic 55013 alongside in a bay dmu 'bubble car' unit 55013, where both at the time were allocated to Haymarket. I wonder how the fuelling records and staff timesheets there distinguished them.

Bubble 55013 was not on TOPS at the same time as Deltic 13. Passenger stock (apart from NPCCS) were not on TOPS (or rather POIS) until the early to mid 1980’s.

Maintenance records (job cards, fuel sheets) were then manual and the chances of making a mistake were slim because in the case of the former, they were type specific. Staff maintaining traction and rolling stock didn’t quote numbers on their actual time sheets - the only time they would quote numbers in the 1970’s was on maintenance documentation and any bonus related piecework sheets they filled in. Sometimes they never saw a timesheet until the end of the week because they just clocked or signed in and out.

Before individual job numbers came in, the M&EE function used the generalised six figure accounts classifications so if you were at Finsbury Park TMD, your timesheet would be allocated to “locomotive maintenance”, if you worked at the DMU shed in Western Sidings, your timesheet would be allocated to “DMU maintenance” and if you were a Cat 3 fuel guy, your time would get allocated to “fuelling”, which was regarded as more of a running expense. Some simplified examples above but until LVRS and then RAVERS, maintenance of individual locos or stock didn’t directly cost through the systems.

 

[Helvellyn]

Bubble 55013 was not on TOPS at the same time as Deltic 13. Passenger stock (apart from NPCCS) were not on TOPS (or rather POIS) until the early to mid 1980’s.

Maintenance records (job cards, fuel sheets) were then manual and the chances of making a mistake were slim because in the case of the former, they were type specific. Staff maintaining traction and rolling stock didn’t quote numbers on their actual time sheets - the only time they would quote numbers in the 1970’s was on maintenance documentation and any bonus related piecework sheets they filled in. Sometimes they never saw a timesheet until the end of the week because they just clocked or signed in and out.

Before individual job numbers came in, the M&EE function used the generalised six figure accounts classifications so if you were at Finsbury Park TMD, your timesheet would be allocated to “locomotive maintenance”, if you worked at the DMU shed in Western Sidings, your timesheet would be allocated to “DMU maintenance” and if you were a Cat 3 fuel guy, your time would get allocated to “fuelling”, which was regarded as more of a running expense. Some simplified examples above but until LVRS and then RAVERS, maintenance of individual locos or stock didn’t directly cost through the systems.

Bit of a penny drop moment but I suppose that's why LHCS and NPCCS didn't receive depot allocations until the mid-1980s because they were just a regional resource. Once on TOPS having a depot allocation would better help with cost attribution I assume.

 

[Taunton]

We had found out about lack of BR cost allocation (and likewise revenue allocation) in the 1970s in a study, based indeed on Edinburgh (might still be in the university library there). It was actually one of the aspects we picked up on, and made one realise that the figures quoted in the Beeching Report were in many cases little more than (educated) guesses, and quite often manipulated to suit an agenda. Then we found the autobiography of Stewart Joy, Beeching's Chief Economist, which straightforwardly stated this.

Back to rolling stock numbers and there must surely have been moments, TOPS or not, when for example the shed turn crew were told "go and shunt our 55013 over to the back road", and they took the wrong one ...

 

[Gloster]

They were introducing TOPS for NPCCS (Non-Passenger Carrying Coaching Stock, i.e. parcels vans and the like) when I was a numbertaker in 1978-1979. Most vehicles had the new codes painted on and I always reported them that way, but there were still plenty of odds and sads that hadn’t been done.

 

[Clarence Yard]

We had found out about lack of BR cost allocation (and likewise revenue allocation) in the 1970s in a study, based indeed on Edinburgh (might still be in the university library there). It was actually one of the aspects we picked up on, and made one realise that the figures quoted in the Beeching Report were in many cases little more than (educated) guesses, and quite often manipulated to suit an agenda. Then we found the autobiography of Stewart Joy, Beeching's Chief Economist, which straightforwardly stated this.

Back to rolling stock numbers and there must surely have been moments, TOPS or not, when for example the shed turn crew were told "go and shunt our 55013 over to the back road", and they took the wrong one ...

More likely with an abbreviation, which is the more common language at depots. If you just told the shed driver at FP to take ‘402 onto the fuel road and he sees both 31402 and 47402, which one does he take?! Sometimes you get mistakes, even when you have told him the right number - just a brain fade by the driver concerned.

Which is why you usually tell the shed driver where it is first before telling him where to put it.

 

[Deepgreen]

The 1973 Ian Allan combined volume has twenty-three of the 195 AC electrics and fifteen Class 76 with their new TOPS numbers: the date for LMR information is 23-12-1972. I think they completed the LMR electrics before going on to the diesels.

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When I was a numbertaker in 1978-1979, they were still completing the work on wagons and only just starting parcels, etc. stock.

I recall as a boy finding it very frustrating trying to determine which locos I had seen when their numbers changed, as the sequences were often not the same as previously - e.g. D9000 became 55022 - that sort of thing. Oh, the troubles of childhood weighed so heavily!