Penn Central Engine Types

In the 1972 Penn Central Employee Timetable #6 Northeastern Region, on pg.212, is an extensive chart listing engine restrictions for the territory that was once the New Haven Railroad. PC used its own engine coding system that designated various types of locomotives in the chart.

I bought "Penn Central Power" at considerable expense hoping the book would state what type of engine each code stood for. Unfortunately, the book does not use the PC engine codes from the timetable, just the actual engine numbers found on the locomotives. So it was no help.

Does anyone know what type of locomotive the following PC engine codes designated? (For example, GP9, GP7, SW1200, GP30, RS3, etc.):

AS6
ES6
AF24
ARS10
ARS18
AS10
EF25
ES10
ES12
FS10
AF25
ARS16
EF15
EF22
EFP15
ERS15
ERS17
ES15
GF25
EF17
ARS24
EP20
EP22
AF27
AF30
AF36
EF25
EF30
EF36
GF28
GF30
GF33
GRS22
ERS20
E44
E33
E40
EP17
EP18

Please accept my apologigies for the list being so long. I have tried to find the answer to this questions for quite sometime. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!
Gary Ruzbasan

Welcome, the first part of cracking this is just a jig saw puzzle....

..................Switcher...Road.Switcher.....Frieght......FreightPassenger......Passenger
Alco.............AS6.............ARS10.............AF24
...................AS10...........ARS16.............AF25
.....................................ARS18..............AF27
.....................................ARS24..............AF30
............................................................AF36
EMD..............ES6............ERS15.............EF15..............EFP15.................EP17
....................ES10..........ERS17.............EF17........................................EP18
....................ES12..........ERS20.............EF22........................................EP20
....................ES15................................EF25........................................EP22
...........................................................EF30
...........................................................EF36
GE.................................GRS22............GF25
..........................................................GF28
..........................................................GF30
..........................................................GF33
Fairbanks.....FS10
Electrics..............................................E33
.........................................................E40
.........................................................E44

The digits of course are horsepower in hundreds. I don’t specifically know the rest but this should narrow your choices quite a bit.

Bill

Late PS, having played with the puzzle, here's an online roster with Baldwin and Lima units too.

Here's the best I could come up with:
AS6-Alco S-1 / ES6-EMD SW1 / ARS10-Alco RS1 / ARS18-Alco RS11 /
AS10-Alco S4 / EF25-EMD GP35 / ES10-EMD NW2 / ES12-EMD SW7,SW9&SW1200 / FS10-FM H10-44 / AF25-Alco C425 / ARS16-Alco RS3 / EF15-EMD F7 / EF22-EMD GP30 / ERS15-EMD GP7 / ERS17-EMD GP9 / ES15-EMD SW1500 / EFP15-EMD FP7 ? / GF25-GE U25B,U25C /
EF17-EMD F9 / ARS24-Alco C424 / EP20-EMD E7 / EP22-EMD E8 /
AF27-Alco C628 / AF30-Alco C430,C630 / AF36-Alco C636 / EF25-EMD GP35 / EF30-EMD GP40,SD40 / EF36-EMD SD45 / GF28-GE U28B / GF30-GE U30B,C / GF33-GE U33B,C / GRS22 ? / ERS20 ? / E44,E33 & E40 Electrics / EP17-EMD FL9 / EP18-EMD FL9 /

Hope this helps.

NYC-BKO wrote:Here's the best I could come up with:
AS6-Alco S-1 / ES6-EMD SW1 / ARS10-Alco RS1 / ARS18-Alco RS11 /
AS10-Alco S4 / EF25-EMD GP35 / ES10-EMD NW2 / ES12-EMD SW7,SW9&SW1200 / FS10-FM H10-44 / AF25-Alco C425 / ARS16-Alco RS3 / EF15-EMD F7 / EF22-EMD GP30 / ERS15-EMD GP7 / ERS17-EMD GP9 / ES15-EMD SW1500 / EFP15-EMD FP7 ? / GF25-GE U25B,U25C /
EF17-EMD F9 / ARS24-Alco C424 / EP20-EMD E7 / EP22-EMD E8 /
AF27-Alco C628 / AF30-Alco C430,C630 / AF36-Alco C636 / EF25-EMD GP35 / EF30-EMD GP40,SD40 / EF36-EMD SD45 / GF28-GE U28B / GF30-GE U30B,C / GF33-GE U33B,C / GRS22 ? / ERS20 ? / E44,E33 & E40 Electrics / EP17-EMD FL9 / EP18-EMD FL9 /

Hope this helps.

Brian, before you do much research on this one, this same question was
asked on the New Haven Railroad forum and I and one or two others
answered it on there in great detail.

www.nhrhta.org

Noel Weaver

Penn Central pretty much took overthe Pennsylvania Railroad classification system unchanged. (Conrail didn't, and started using manufacturers' model designations instead: U23B instead of GRS22.)
The first letter is manufacturer: A,B,E,F,G,L for Alco,Baldwin,EMD,FairbanksMorse, GeneralElectric, Lima.
Then F for freight (cab units and high horsepower, second generation, hoods), P for passenger, RS (or FS) for roadswitcher, S for switcher.
One anomaly-- preventing straightforward decoding into models-- is that the basic system doesn't distinguish BB from CC hood units. So, for ARS24 and AF24 you just have to know that Dl-600B was early enough that all hoods were called roadswitchers and Dl-640 or C424 late enough that they had started using the F type designation for hood units. Otherwise, a final, lowercase, letter marking a modification was used: GP40 was an EF30, SD40 an EF30a.