{"id":3141,"date":"2025-07-25T13:23:10","date_gmt":"2025-07-25T12:23:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/?p=3141"},"modified":"2026-04-17T16:16:07","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T15:16:07","slug":"uk-locomotive-wheel-and-axle-numbering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/?p=3141","title":{"rendered":"UK Locomotive Wheel and Axle Numbering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>I thought I&#8217;d share this for people in a similar situation to me &#8211; very occasionally needing to refer to a specific wheel position on a locomotive. Strangely this information isn&#8217;t easy to come by online.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"496\" src=\"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/10000350115867250767885630609-1024x496.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-3220\" srcset=\"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/10000350115867250767885630609-1024x496.png 1024w, https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/10000350115867250767885630609-300x145.png 300w, https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/10000350115867250767885630609.png 1129w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Number 1 wheel is usually marked by an arrow above it on the vehicle body. It can be difficult to spot if you&#8217;re not certain. If the vehicle is a driving vehicle in a Multiple Unit or other vehicle with only one cab, No. 1 end is going to be the cab end.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Sometimes working out which is No. 1 end on an intermediate vehicle can be a pain, so it&#8217;s best to refer to drawings if possible, or the arrow indicating wheel 1.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This is so much an issue, that I have received multiple answers from different people. If someone has a definitive answer (for example by reference to a British or Railway Group Standard), please, please, please, message me via my contact form.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Note &#8211; this page previously showed wheel 1 on the other side of the diagrams, but I have since seen a photo of an EMT Class 43 with the wheel 1 identifier as shown above. After quite a while searching, this is the only designated wheel I found, so I have updated the diagrams to match.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I thought I&#8217;d share this for people in a similar situation to me &#8211; very occasionally needing to refer to a specific wheel position on a locomotive. Strangely this information isn&#8217;t easy to come by online. Number 1 wheel is usually marked by an arrow above it on the vehicle body. It can be difficult [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[676,12,673,674,677],"tags":[686,681,687,678,679,683,684,688,685,689,682,680],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7g9vY-OF","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3141"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3221,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3141\/revisions\/3221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3141"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3141"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/elephantandchicken.co.uk\/stuffandnonsense\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3141"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}