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Western Region reporting numbers

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9.9K views 6 replies 4 participants last post by  Graham Plowman  
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#1 · (Edited by Moderator)
I took up train spotting in the early fifties. There was a lovely spot at Old Oak tucked between the main line to the west and the Birmingham direct route, a small triangle of ground given over to allotments which were even then in decline so we were rarely kicked out. One of the annoying aspects of copping a loco number was when an express flew by with a three digit reporting number which was attached to the smokebox door thus hiding the loco number from view! At the time, I never bothered to find out how the code worked and now in my late sixties with a layout loosely based on a bit of the Weymouth line on the go,my research reveals more and more photographs of trains carrying these reporting numbers.

So the question is, can anyone point me in the direction of a list or book which covers these numbers and how they work in the overall running oif the railway?

Regards one and all Tel
 
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#2 ·
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#3 ·
There was a list in Railway World magazine many years ago but they started out as the first digit represented the starting point and digits two and three represented the train number

100-199 : Paddington
200-299 : Shrewsbury
300-399 : Birmingham and Wolverhampton
400-499 : Bristol
500-599 : Exeter
600-699 : Plymouth
700-799 : South Wales
0XX : Specials and Boat Trains

However this was changed in winter 1958-59 so that the first digit indicated the destination of the train: 0 and 1 London, 2 Bristol and the Southern, 3 Torbay, 4 Plymouth and beyond, 5 Gloucester/Newport, 6 Cardiff, 7 Swansea and West Wales, 8 Birmingham/Wolverhampton, 9 Shrewsbury. It was changed again in the summer 1960 timetable as the 4-character headcode system was introduced. The first digit of the four character headcode indicated the Class of the train and on a steam loco that would be given by the position of the lamps so all they needed to carry was the second digit alpha (destination area) and the two final numerics.

There's a page on Wiki called "Train reporting numbers" which explains it a bit better than I can (they also explain the letters!).

Hugh
 
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#5 ·
Hi Tel,

If you pm me I can probably send you the relevant pages....

It won't be fast though..
Image


Regards
 
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