Diesel Classification
The Pennsylvania Railroad was slow to dieselize. By the end of WW2 they only had 18 units. However over the next 22 years they had acquired a total of 3005 units. They bought from all the manufacturers: Alco 516 units, Baldwin 643 units, EMD 1,479 units, Fairbanks-Morse 200 units, General Electric 145 units, and Lima 22 units. This diversity was a nightmare for the maintenance department as there was very little compatibility amongst the different builders.
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- The class number system is as follows:
- The first letter stood for the manufacturer; A=Alco, B =Baldwin, G =General Electric, E =EMD, F =Fairbanks-Morse, and L =Lima.
- The second and third letters represented the type of service; S =switcher, F =Freight, P =passenger, :: PF=dual service, RS =road-switcher, and H =helper.
- The next number(s) were for horse power rounded to hundreds.
- The last letter, if used, was for model variations.
Read more about this topic: PRR Locomotive Classification