TOPS renumbering process

[norbitonflyer]

I long thought that a little more effort to make the last two or three numbers correlate with the old ones would have helped, instead of strict starting everything at 1. Ironically the 03 class did exactly this, and didn't get upset about the gaps.

Class 24 had a few gaps, and D5028/43/51/67/88/93/114/122/131/138/139/149 (and class 25s No D5278 and D7605) were all scrapped before TOPS, with the corresponding 24xxx (and 25xxx) numbers unused. D5005 was also withdrawn pre-TOPS, but the number 24005 was taken by the former D5000.
(Class 25 was unusual because, as the original number range started at D5151, the penultimate digit of the TOPS number was 50 out - so e.g D5233 became 25083, and D7500 became 25150)

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Sep 2023 ==

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

I recall in the 1972 Ian Allen book the class 87s ("to be introduced") were allocated numbers in the E32xx series

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Sep 2023 ==

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.

I recall on a visit to Derby seeing a Class 25 sporting a dot. As the locomotive in question (whose number i don't recall) was allocated to Ebbw Junction (and therefore quite a catch at Derby) I assume it was there for overhaul - possibly being run-in after such attention.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Sep 2023 ==

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!”

Of course, 60007 was actually No 7 in later LNER days

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Whatever, the shift foreman (I suppose it was) would tell the teams - renumber (say) 5247 today lads - and the team had to look up 5247 and look across to the right for the new number. Let's say it was to become 25 197.
.........

Sure enough, 5247 was not to become 25 197, but - if you looked carefully - 25 196. *

...................
* These are not the real numbers. I don't remember which locomotive was the actual one involved.

Great story. The class 25s were confusing, but 5247 actually became 25097. On the 25s, the last digit - but ONLY the last digit - corresponded

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 11 Sep 2023 ==

The first renumbered loco that I saw was in July 73 when 45101 rolled into York.

Mine was also in July 1973. 45102, bizarrely at Exeter Central. No idea what it was doing there. Although it was obviously a "Peak", I had no idea which one.
45016 and 45106 were the only two Class 45s to "keep" their original numbers - 16 and 106 respectively.

Interesting to speculate on what "D" numbers would have been allocated to Classes 56-70 had the decision to renumber not been taken. As class 5s, i guess the D9xxx series could have been used for Classes 56-60, but post privatisation some numver ranges would have had to be re-used.

Even m ore speculative, if the D/E series had not been invneted in 1957, what numbers would have been allocated to the pilot scheme locos and later in the 1948 scheme (all diesels numbered in the 1xxxx range)

 

[70014IronDuke]

...
The final unrenumbered loco I remember seeing (with the exception of class 45s) was class 47, 1585 in August 1974. This had been allocated the number 47022, however a decision must have been taken not to renumber it until its call to Crewe for conversion to 47542.

August 1974 was very late. Are you sure there was a "decision" to leave it, or was it that, wthout a D or E exam, it just eluded the home depot and went into Crewe with its old number? Was it an ER loco?

That takes me onto the question, with the exception of class 45s, what was the last locomotive to be renumbered? I am assuming it could be a shunter that was out based from its main allocated depot.

I wish I could remember now on the LMR, but yes, I suspect it was an 08. Possibly a 20.

This thread made me try to remember the depots I went to to train the teams. I can't remember going to Cricklewood and certainly not going to Willesden - which both surely had Class 08s allocated. And Crewe too - but I didn't go there. I did go to Chester - first time I'd been in the city - and they only had a handfull of shunters, I think. I don't know now how we made sure all those Class 08s were done in obscure places.

 

[Western Sunset]

Re-1585. This was a WR loco and I have it down as renumbered 47542 11/74. This was when it was transferred to the ER. This corresponds to the listing on the class47.co.uk website, though I made my notes about 40 years ago.
The loco might well have been physically renumbered earlier; presumably the poster (above) saw it marked as 47542 during 8/74 inside Crewe Works.

 

[Gloster]

I remember going up the West Coast Main line to Chester around 1973 or 1974 and being baffled about how so many locos, mostly electric (I think), didn’t appear in my Ian Allan. A day-trip to Llandudno with only diesels did not produce any such problems. (It may have been at the time that Tricky Dicky resigned, as we came back a day early because of a row between my mother and the great-aunt we were visiting over the resignation.)

 

[Sultan1056]

Re-1585. This was a WR loco and I have it down as renumbered 47542 11/74. This was when it was transferred to the ER. This corresponds to the listing on the class47.co.uk website, though I made my notes about 40 years ago.
The loco might well have been physically renumbered earlier; presumably the poster (above) saw it marked as 47542 during 8/74 inside Crewe Works.

I was returning from a family holiday in Newquay on 17/8/74 when I observed it at Newton Abbot.

 

[Western Sunset]

That's interesting...

 

[Clarence Yard]

That takes me onto the question, with the exception of class 45s, what was the last locomotive to be renumbered? I am assuming it could be a shunter that was out based from its main allocated depot.

3886 to 08718 - official date 7/75. It was the Fort William shunter. Only Peak 125 remained to be done after that - official date 12/75.

 

[Sultan1056]

3886 to 08718 - official date 7/75. It was the Fort William shunter. Only Peak 125 remained to be done after that - official date 12/75.

Many thanks for the info

 

[Magdalia]

I was returning from a family holiday in Newquay on 17/8/74 when I observed it at Newton Abbot.

On the same day I was heading in the opposite direction and saw 1669 at Swindon. That became 47538.

It may have been at the time that Tricky Dicky resigned, as we came back a day early because of a row between my mother and the great-aunt we were visiting over the resignation.

Does that mean that one of them thought that Tricky Dicky shouldn't resign?

 

[Western Sunset]

On the same day I was heading in the opposite direction and saw 1669 at Swindon. That became 47538.

I've got that as renumbered 11/74 too.

 

[Gloster]

Does that mean that one of them thought that Tricky Dicky shouldn't resign?

My mother thought that he had been brought down by…well somebody or something and he couldn‘t have done anything serious as he was the American President. I am not sure of her reasoning, although she may have had relatives in the US who admired him and that made him OK. My great-aunt had an almost pathological hatred of him and seemed to think he should spend the rest of his life in Alcatraz. Again, I don’t know why, but it is possible that he had been critical of the Christian Science movement, to which she was passionately devoted.

 

[Merle Haggard]

3886 to 08718 - official date 7/75. It was the Fort William shunter. Only Peak 125 remained to be done after that - official date 12/75.

I know that this is tangential to the thread - but I visited Fort William when the shed (63B) was still open, and saw D4098 (I think) which was allocated there. Later, although still working at Ft. William, the shed was closed and the 350 was reallocated to 63A Perth.

Now Perth is probably the nearest shed to F. W. as the crow flies, and 63B was obviously a garage shed under 63A, but it's a long way round for a shunter to get to its allocated shed. So did they ever actually go to Perth? And would be a similar long trek for a Perth fitter to do a lower exam at F.W.

Possibly explains why a 350 at F.W. was the last to be renumbered, though...

 

[norbitonflyer]

I know that this is tangential to the thread - but I visited Fort William when the shed (63B) was still open, and saw D4098 (I think) which was allocated there. Later, although still working at Ft. William, the shed was closed and the 350 was reallocated to 63A Perth.

Now Perth is probably the nearest shed to F. W. as the crow flies, and 63B was obviously a garage shed under 63A, but it's a long way round for a shunter to get to its allocated shed. So did they ever actually go to Perth? And would be a similar long trek for a Perth fitter to do a lower exam at F.W.

Possibly explains why a 350 at F.W. was the last to be renumbered, though...

I think Inverness is closer as the crow flies, but even further away by rail. After the line between Callender and Crianlarich closed c1965, the nearest diesel depot by rail was probably Eastfield (Hyndland EMU depot is slightly closer!)
But my recollection was that the last renumbering was an 08 based at GM (which I thought was the very remote Georgemas Junction but is actually Grangemouth)