Eastern Railroad Discussion > Most common locomotive number?

I tried searching for a topic like this here on TO but came up empty handed.

I noticed the other day that there are quite a few railroads that have an engine numbered 1804: RJ Corman, Delaware & Lackawanna, East Penn, Nittany & Bald Eagle to name a couple.

This got me thinking, would there be any way to determine what the most common locomotive number is? It would likely require searching across multiple railroad rosters, but I'm not sure how easily this could be done or if it's worthwhile to determine.

Another popular number I can think of among class 1 railroads would be in the 5900-5910 range. CSX, NS, BNSF, UP, CP, CN all currently have or used to have units in this range.

Matt

In ye days of olde, many railroads started the Diesel era with numbers based upon horsepower, so I would think 1000, 1001, 1500, 1501 might be quite common then.
And, while I like numbers and they have been my life's work, I fail to see any usefulness to such a study, other than pure curiosity.

TJY

My wild ass guess (if you are just talking diesels today) would be 3001.

I have a hunch that's it's a GP38 style engine numbered "2000" or somesuch...there are a LOT of GP38's, and a LOT of them seem to be numbered in the 2000's.
but that's just based on my thoughts, not any specific data crunching...

DrLoco Wrote:
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> I have a hunch that's it's a GP38 style engine
> numbered "2000" or somesuch...there are a LOT of
> GP38's, and a LOT of them seem to be numbered in
> the 2000's.
> but that's just based on my thoughts, not any
> specific data crunching...

I might change to your 2000. I think some railroads when the second generation came along starting numbering the units in the range which showed their horsepower (such as a GP38 numbered 2000). I was thinking numbers in the 3000s for SD40 engines.

Could be on to something with both number slots. The Chessie GP38 #3802 was named the "all american diesel" or something along that line by trains magazine, when they were trying to find the average diesel. It was renumbered to #2002 before becoming a MOV pumpkin, now at the B&O museum.

ts1457 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> DrLoco Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > I have a hunch that's it's a GP38 style engine
> > numbered "2000" or somesuch...there are a LOT
> of
> > GP38's, and a LOT of them seem to be numbered
> in
> > the 2000's.
> > but that's just based on my thoughts, not any
> > specific data crunching...
>
> I might change to your 2000. I think some
> railroads when the second generation came along
> starting numbering the units in the range which
> showed their horsepower (such as a GP38 numbered
> 2000). I was thinking numbers in the 3000s for
> SD40 engines.