When did class 98 start to be used for main line locomotives?

[adb968008]

6 minutes ago, Michael Hodgson said:

Hmmm.  So when entered into a five character field on a computer system, would that be a four digit number with a leading space or with a trailing space?  Would both versions be able to co-exist as distinct vehicles ?

Computer systems that can accept spaces as well as digits usually accept also any alphabetic character too, but in that case you might as well have kept the D.

In practice different systems interface with one another and any non-numeric characters would be likely to cause a problem with something somewhere.

I saw a tops print elsewhere of D1023’s run to York in 1977.

It listed various locos but 1023 was listed exactly the same as any other on the list.

it was aligned left in numbering position, ie a prefix- space, rather than post fix.

 

In those vax/vms days I assume 5 char spaces were permitted to hold the number in array and it just used 4 spaces, rather than 5 allocated to show it on the screen. (Showing my age their when it comes to coding).

 

 

 

Edited December 29, 2021 by adb968008

[Metr0Land]

AFAIK although the Hymeks were notionally allocated class 35 they never appeared on TOPS (until the need for preserved ones to be towed as per current classification).  TOPS wasn't introduced for all assets across the network all at once, and by the time they would have had to be entered as 35nnn they were all out of service.

 

Also the Bluebell ex-Met Chesham stock used on the Underground in early 2013 (moved to Lillie Bridge late 2012) were moved by road at that time.  It was later that they were given TOPS numbers and duly certified for haulage on NR metals (not sure of date or carriage id's).

[rodent279]

On 26/02/2019 at 13:57, 298 said:

There is still a mystery number (98428?) which I'm sure was the Nord Compound when it took the usual route to Didcot Railway Centre.

So did it move from Wansford to Didcot on BR? When was that, are there any photos of the movement?

[pete_mcfarlane]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

So did it move from Wansford to Didcot on BR? When was that, are there any photos of the movement?

Everything has to go into Didcot by rail, as there is no road access, so it might have just been delivered to the BR yard by road and then shunted into the GWS site.