Railway Codes and other data

A (hopefully) comprehensive listing

Last update 10 April 2012

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Phil Deaves, Swindon, Wiltshire

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The British railway is, for a variety of reasons, awash with acronyms and codes of various kinds. This web site sets out to explain some of these related to the infrastructure and to operational issues. Not included in this site are abbreviations of company names, or information about trains themselves: this information is available elsewhere, and my main interest lies in infrastructure.

Taking Aspley Guise as an example, the codes BBM and MD140 apply to the route on which Aspley Guise station sits, and APG, 138000, ASPLEYG, and 62051 apply to the station itself.  All of these codes mean different things, and are used in different ways.  I hope that this site helps to explain these codes.

Most of the information contained in this site has taken many hours and letters to different companies to compile: I hope that you, the reader, will find it helpful to shed light on some of the codes found in railway documents.

I hope that the records contained in this site are as complete as possible. If you are able to add to the data, please contact me using this link.

Also on this site are two lists of legal data.  The first is a list of British railway services introduced under special legislation. This legislation allows operators to consider certain services as "experimental", and withdraw them if considered necessary, without going through full closure procedures.  The second is a list of licences and licence exemptions issued by the Office of the Rail Regulator.

For more information about day to day changes with Britain's railway infrastructure, please refer to the infrastructure section of the Railway Observer, which I compile.

Please feel free to quote this site.  However, please credit me as your source.  Feel free to add a link on your website to mine.  If you contact me with information about your site, I will, if appropriate to this site, reciprocate.

Wanted

Railway uniform neck ties, specifically latest Southern Railway, London Midland, East Midlands Trains, NXEA, c2c, Heathrow Express, DRS, Freightliner, latest Merseyrail, Manchester Metrolink, "stripey" Virgin Trains and the latest Arriva (with square pattern).  Reasonable costs paid: please contact me if you can help.  Thank you.

The data lists (continuously updated):

• Engineer's line references (ELRs).
• Stations, showing each ELR and mileage.
• Signal box prefix codes.
• Electrification mast prefix codes.
• PRIDE/LOR codes, also showing Route Availability (RA).
• CRS codes, also showing TIPLOC, NLC and STANOX codes.
• Depots, showing TOPS, CRS, TIPLOC and STANOX codes.
• Experimental services introduced under the "Speller Act".
• Line names used for marketing purposes.
• Railway licences issued by the Office of Rail Regulation.
• Railway tunnels with their lengths.
• Cycling by train information, for those wishing to take cycles on the national rail network.

These pages are used by (in alphabetical order):

(links open in new window)

Now over 50 corporate users!

• Advenza Freight (former freight forwarder)
• Alphatek Hyperformance Coatings (rail coatings)
• Amey (infrastructure services/consultancy)
• Arriva Trains Wales (passenger train operating company)
• Arup (consultancy)
• Atkins (consultancy)
• Babcock Rail (infrastructure services)
• Balfour Beatty Rail Projects (infrastructure services)
• Barry Doe (independent consultant)
• Blue Tree Acoustics (energy and acoustic consultant)
• Chiltern Railways (passenger train operating company)
• Coffey (ground engineering/geotechnical)
• Cornerstone Information Systems (travel industry IT solutions)
• Cotswold Rail (former charter train and freight train operator)
• Credo (strategy consultant)
• Delta Rail (consultant)
• Department for Transport (government department)
• East Midlands Trains (passenger train operating company)
• Faithful+Gould (construction project and cost management consultancy)
• Filter Worldwide (IT solutions)
• Fone Alarm Installations (customer information and monitoring)
• Galliford Try (infrastructure contractor)
• Halcrow (consultancy)
• HRS Services (environmental services)
• Hyder Consulting (consultant)
• Infotec (customer information system designer/supplier)
• Interfleet Technology (consultancy)
• ISC Best Practice (CAD models for listed building and railway consents)
• JNP Group (consulting engineers)
• Kier Rail (infrastructure contractor)
• Network Rail (infrastructure owner)
• Nexus Alpha (transport information systems supplier)
• Northern Rail (passenger train operating company)
• NG Bailey (infrastructure contractor)
• OLE Limited (electrification services)
• OwenWilliams Railways (former consultancy, now part of Amey)
• PRA-Rail Operations (operations consultant)
• Premtech Solutions Limited (consultancy)
• The Railway Engineering Co Ltd (consultancy)
• Rockshore (real time information systems)
• SELRAP (campaign group)
• Serco Integrated Transport (consultancy)
• SKM anthony hunts (consultancy)
• Siemens (equipment manufacturer)
• Southern Railway (passenger train operating company)
• South West Trains (passenger train operating company)
• Stirling Geoenvironmental Ltd (earthworks examinations)
• Trackmaps (infrastructure diagram publisher)
• Trevor Patrick Partnership (consultancy)
• URS Scott Wilson (consultancy)
• Vital Rail (infrastructure contractor)
• WycheGnome (passenger information consultancy)

Does your company use these pages?  Let me know and I'll add you to the list!

... and something else (last update 4 August 2011):

• You will find a small collection of my railway photographs here and on this second page.  I hope that you find them enjoyable and a little different to the usual "front three quarters in countryside" views.