Food For Fought

[Guest ___]

The other day my father was looking over my layout and asked a question which I never gave any thought to before. He asked why some trains are named by class, serried or letter. Example:

 

103

E655

185 Series

Class EF58

 

I hadn't given any thought about this until some recent project work here began. To me it's just the way it is, but thought I'd toss the chum to the shark tank (you guys are the sharks, and the topic is the chum) for fun and see what develops. (Great, now I'm hungry for Long John Silvers)

[CaptOblivious]

The other day my father was looking over my layout and asked a question which I never gave any thought to before. He asked why some trains are named by class, serried or letter. Example:

 

103

E655

185 Series

Class EF58

 

I hadn't given any thought about this until some recent project work here began. To me it's just the way it is, but thought I'd toss the chum to the shark tank (you guys are the sharks, and the topic is the chum) for fun and see what develops. (Great, now I'm hungry for Long John Silvers)

 

Here's what I've inferred from my pokings so far. Don't take this as gospel, as some of this is reconstructed from evidence.

 

JR East now prepends an "E" to their MUs, e.g. E231, E4, E200

 

There are two designators for class or series or type in Japanese, 系 and 形, both read "kei". Typically, the first one is translated "series", and the second "class". Series is often used to describe a group of related cars with different designations, so e.g. the 209 Series has individual cars named, e.g. MOHA208, MOHA209, SAHA208, etc. Class is often used to describe a series of cars with the same designation, e.g. all Class EF65 locomotives start with EF65.

 

Finally, 番台 ("bandai") means number, as in serial number. The serial number is also used to pick out subclasses, e.g. E231-500 refers to the subclass of E231-series that begin from serial number 500 as a special subclass. It usually gets written just like that, connected to the class or series name with a dash.

 

Is that helpful? Or even largely correct?

[disturbman]

I can't answer your question but I will however say that the title of the subject is really fueling my thoughts right now...

[Guest ___]

I went with 3 "F"s as a pun.