Santa Fe Diesels road number letters

John Graser posted:

What is the letter (C or L) after the road number on Santa Fe diesel locomotives mean?

Unlike most, if not all other railroads, that used the A-B-C-D to denote their A-B-B-A sets of EMD F Units, the Santa Fe used L-A-B-C. The "L" indicating the "Lead" A-Unit, while the first trailing B-Unit thus was the "A", the second B-Uint was the "B", and the rear, or trailing A-Uint was the "C". Thus, on the Santa Fe, there could/would be MANY, MANY occasions when the front/lead A-Unit was a road number ending in "C". When an actual leading unit of a consist was an "L" unit, there was no letter in the road number boxes, but a small, black "L" was painted just below the front nose door, above the anti-climber.

Thanks for the info.

Thanks to hotwater...always wondered what those letters meant....

Hot Water posted:

John Graser posted:

What is the letter (C or L) after the road number on Santa Fe diesel locomotives mean?

Unlike most, if not all other railroads, that used the A-B-C-D to denote their A-B-B-A sets of EMD F Units, the Santa Fe used L-A-B-C. The "L" indicating the "Lead" A-Unit, while the first trailing B-Unit thus was the "A", the second B-Uint was the "B", and the rear, or trailing A-Uint was the "C". Thus, on the Santa Fe, there could/would be MANY, MANY occasions when the front/lead A-Unit was a road number ending in "C". When an actual leading unit of a consist was an "L" unit, there was no letter in the road number boxes, but a small, black "L" was painted just below the front nose door, above the anti-climber.

I have seen photos of the lead had the C after the number, and always wondered that also!

I remember getting the same PR package when I was a kid, and eventually that's what I became.

locopilot750 posted:

I remember getting the same PR package when I was a kid, and eventually that's what I became.

 

That is amazing!  I used to call the railroads and ask if they could send me any P.R. information.  I had a ton of stuff from them!  The nicest was Santa Fe, and the guy actually talked to me for a little bit, asking me about trains and all.

Then a few days later I got their P.R. stuff with some extra Santa Fe items thrown in, along with that note from the guy I talked to on the phone!

I'm only an engineer for them on my layout, but I still count that as a small victory!

Are you still an engineer for them?  How long were you there?

I started at Topeka as a Frt Carman apprentice, but in 1-'79 I transferred to Emporia as a Fireman. Went through the training program & sim. school, got promoted in 3-80. Worked out of Emporia west, until the ID Agreement went into effect in 9-88. After that, we all got transfeered to Kansas City, and I worked west out of there across two divisions (& three sometimes) until I retired in 12-2010, the last 15 years or so I worked the KC to Wellington pool. 42 years altogether.

This numbering scheme is an example of Santa Fe marching to its own drum, which it often did.

Prior to 1956-57, the C did not appear on the number board.  The rednose and blue cab units only had the road number in the number board, with the small L or C centered under the nose door, as well as with the small road number at the rear corners of the C-unit.  The L unit only had the road number there.  The booster units always had only the small road number and A or B in the stripe at the rear of each unit.  It was not a problem, because Santa Fe kept the units of each number coupled as one locomotive.  However, they began adding the C to the C cab unit number boards after an incident in which they had split a blue A-B-B-A freight locomotive into two A-B locomotives for a couple of local haulers during the Kansas wheat rush, and wound up with two locomotives displaying the same number in their number boards.  This is a prelude to disaster, as, in timetable and train order operation, crews holding orders to wait at (station name) for extra (engine number and direction) might proceed after the first identically numbered locomotive passed and they identified it by the number displayed, and then crash head-on into the following engine displaying the same number, which was the one the Dispatcher actually wanted them to wait for.  Fortunately somebody realized this and no wreck ever happened because of it, because they took the safe course and added C to the number boards of the specified F-units (and also to the glass bead number plates on the nose of freight FT, F3 and F7 engines).  They did not put the L on the Lead cab unit number board or plate; it displayed only the number.  Around 1960, they did split up all the F-units into single units and the days of numerically matched 3- and 4-unit Santa Fe locomotives ended.  

(A few F7's were converted, very late in life, to mother (cab) and slug (booster) units, and renumbered into the 100's, and those few units did have an L in the number board, but that was short-lived, as they were already making CF7's out of the F-unit fleet).

No. 90 mentioned "red cab" units.  So was that the "official" ATSF term for "F" units painted in the "Warbonnet" livery?

BTW thanks for the number history.

On the Santa Fe, they were known as "rednoses".  In south Texas, some called then "redheads", but rednose was the universal Santa Fe employee term.  Employees hiring out after the red and silver came back, usually used the term Warbonnet, but, in the F-unit era, that was strictly a railfan term.

Personally, I always used rednose, never warbonnet.  But for purposes of clear communication with others, I have said warbonnet, a few times.