Explanation of Train Headcodes

Is anyone able to supply the meaning of all the figures in the full train headcode? Especially the bit that gives the hour of departure and arrival.
Thanks
Chris

Do you mean the train headcodes, as shown on TOPS reports?
For example, 496P40C 17, would be todays's Parkeston to North Walsham & is made up of:-
49 - (first two digits of the TOPS Stannox, i.e 49400 is Parkeston Yd),
6P40 - (train headcode),
C - (type of train, i.e WTT freight, whereas M is WTT passenger, 1 is normally STP & 2 is normally VSTP),
& 17 - (date, i.e. 17/05/10).
Hope this helps,
Mikky.

Thanks Mikky thats very informative. I was under the impression that part of the code gave the hour of departure but im obviously wrong. I'm now enlightened.
Chris

christhorp1950 wrote:I was under the impression that part of the code gave the hour of departure but im obviously wrong. I'm now enlightened.

The TRAINID is ten characters long and the previous poster appears to have omitted the 8th character which gives the approximate departure time. The full code should be 496P40C317, where the 3 indicates that departure was between 03:00 and 03:59 (Booked departure time is 03:33). The numbers 0-6 each represent an hour eg 00:00-00:59, 01:00-01:59 etc. Between 7am and 7pm, the letters A to X denote half-hour periods of time. From 19:00 onwards, the hourly periods are denoted by Y,Z,7,8,9.

HTH
John

Cheers John that's the missing bit of the puzzle
chris

Thanks for the further update.
The 8th character, appears to have been added, since I left the Railways years ago!