How are freight trains numbered or named?
The rakes are assigned names in alphabetic sequence starting with a name that begins with an ‘A’ for the first formation out of a marshalling yard after 0100 hrs, along with a number. This designation can change if the rake is broken up at another yard and regrouped. Thus, freight trains have names such as ‘Ahmedabad 10’, or ‘Bombay 21’, or ‘India 38’. The letters ‘J’ and ‘U’ are not used, so that there are 24 letters available, one for each hour of the day. The number following the alphabetic part of the name indicates the time (minutes past the top of the hour) when the train departed the yard; e.g., ‘India 38’ is a freight train that left the yard at 0938 hrs. Trains leaving between midnight and 0100 hrs use the letter ‘Z’. The words used to signify the letters of the alphabet are not standardized; ‘Z’ could be indicated by ‘Zebra’ or ‘Zimbabwe’. Some special freight trains are named differently (e.g. the Shalimar Special out of Mumbai (Wadi Bunder to Shalimar near Calcutta), or the
