Railway Union of the Shafterlands

The Railway Union of the Shafterlands (Krepian: Shaffyrlenen des Careta Fer des Untengkan), also known as RUS (Krepian: SCFU), is a trade union comprised of many private trains, tram and rolling stock companies from the Shafterlands and surrounding countries.

The union comprises 103 private railways, 92 tramways and 8 rolling stock companies. Founded in 1923 as an agreement between the North Eastern Railway, Fresbury Metro and Anders Heavy Industries (now known as EndeRails), the union has gradually expanded over the years to include most train companies in Shafterlandean Sumatra and the Krepian archipelago.

The union aims to encourage more people to travel by train instead of automobile. Starting in 2018, it launched a campaign to upgrade many railway lines so that trains could run faster at a lower cost than cars.

History
The Railway Union started in the 1920s in the midst of a growing trend to form trade unions. In the 1930s, most other trade unions collapsed as a result of government intervention to control trade unions. However, since the RUS was for-profit (it helped reduce costs by letting negotiations happen between railway companies, thus reducing duplicate lines), it survived the 1930s.

The Railway Union continuously evolved to become a negotiation platform between train and tram companies, reducing duplicate lines throughout the Shafterlands and also the Krepian archipelago. It also brought many railway companies into the realm of real estate, thus turning many unprofitable companies around.

Rolling stock classification
One of the distinctive features of a company in the RUS is their rolling stock's classification numbers. The RUS strongly encourages member firms to use their common classification number so that in the event of an emergency, other companies can help to maintain the rolling stock. This proved to be useful in 2005 when Fresbury was crippled by the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, and Fresbury Metro lost the Line 4 depot and most Line 4 train cars. The remaining cars in semi-working condition were sent to depots operated by North Eastern Railway and South Eastern Railway to be repaired.

Carriage numbers come in the form L(XXX) NN(NN), where L is a letter representing the type of railcar, XXX is the class number made up of 0 to 3 digits, and NNNN is the carriage number made up of 2 to 4 digits.

Extra classification
In addition, locomotives usually carry an extra letter between the classification number and unit number denoting the number of axles. (E.g. A56C 11 for the 11th unit of class A56, which has 3 driving axles (0-6-0 locomotive).)

The first digit of a 2- or 3-digit classification number in "normal" powered vehicles (B, C, D, K and L types) is used to represent the power type. (High-speed, maglev and limited-speed trains use an arbitrary number) Do note that many train companies break this rule and instead follow a "continuity" rule whereby train series numbers are simply the number after the existing one. This is especially true with trains that were renumbered in the 1958 renumbering directive, as the methods for extra classification was only introduced n 1994.

C and L types

B and K types

D type (letter suffixes are either placed between the class and carriage number, or at the end of the number string)

Since most trains owned by RUS companies are C-type trains, the letter "C" is often omitted in the classification number. E.g. C29 222 becomes 29 222

In multiple units (B, C, D, E, S types), the last digit of the carriage number is usually used to represent the carriage type. If there are 5 or fewer carriages in a trainset, multiple numbers can be used to represent the same carriage type. E.g. Class C4 has 3 cars per trainset, so 4001, 4004 and 4007 belong to different trainsets but are of the same carriage type (in this case, a driving trailer)

Similarly, if there are more than 10 carriages in a trainset, 2 trainset numbers or even 2 classes can be used to represent the same class of train. E.g. Class C32 has 12 cars per trainset, so 32 05x and 32 06x are the same trainset.

Since leading zeros always represent extra trailer cars, in the event that a class of train uses more than 100 trainset numbers (e.g. C69 runs from 69 0011 to 69 2547), future 3-digit class numbers that coincide with the leading 3 digits of these classes will not be allowed to carry 3-digit carriage numbers. ''C41 runs from 41 0010 to 41 1299, and as such, classes C410 and C411 must have 4 digit carriage numbers. In fact, C411 runs from 411 0001 to 411 0012, and despite only having 12 railcars, requires a 4-digit carriage number.''

The first digit in a passenger locomotive trailer (R type) is used to represent the class.

R type

Pre-1954 Classification
Before 1954, a much simpler classification system was used.

Railcars using the pre-1954 classification system had no class number; instead, they used a series number that can overflow. For example, what is usually known as "B Stock" on the Fresbury Metro refers to the 160 'B' series vehicles B-113-31 to B-114-90 and the 80 trailers 3-378-00 to 3-378-80, forming a total of 40 four-motor-car and two-trailer multiple units. (The trains that predate the B stock were steam locomotives that garnered the nickname "Steamers", thus there was never an "A stock", although the term "A stock" could be used to refer to any RUS company-owned steam locomotive.)

Following the 1958 directive to renumber all existing trains not due to be scrapped before 1964, all trains have been renumbered in the x5x to x2xx series. Therefore, old series numbers are usually only used to refer to trains introduced before 1954 and scrapped before 1964.