Re: Difference between CLF & CLP loco's?

["Barry Campbell" <campblbm@ozemail.com.au>]

Rod Young wrote in message
<394f1c6a$0$17014$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au>...
>They changed the code to AN, to highlight the extra HP...that is 4000hp
>I presume the next engine type would have been BN
>The "L" group being 3000 of course.
>The " M" group would have been ignored  because the GM at 1500 / 1800 hp
>already existed
>and in 1952 this was just an abbreviation for General Motors.


I know the issue of why  Commonwealth Railways and ANR/AN coded their locos
the way they did has been discussed before but I always thought that there
was, in fact, no system to it at all.

GM meant .. well a GM loco, the CL was a *Commonwealth* Railways L - like
the L class in WA which were the same 16-645 turbocharged type of loco
thingy.

Of course, when the next class came along Commonwealth Railways had become
Australian National Railways (What a bad omen calling anything Australian
National - see also Australian National Line) so the next class would have
to be an AL and then the next a BL, because B comes after A and then.. but
gee we've got a CL so we'll have DL and EL and this is getting ridiculous.

The next class should be AN because this is, after all Australian
National....takes cork out of bottle etc.


I can't remember if I have posted this before or whether someone else has.
Why would a railway which had so few locos need to do anything other than
think of the next combination of letters that came into the Clerk -
Locomotive Classification's head.

Barry Campbell