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What is a headcode box?
A headcode box (also known as a route indicator or train reporting box) is a display unit mounted on the front of early British Rail diesel or electric locomotives and multiple-units. Its purpose was to display a four-digit code that told signal box staff certain information about the train. This system took over from an earlier one that used discs or lamps arranged in various ways on the front of trains to indicate its route and type.
As always with our very complicated railway history, the exact meaning of the information displayed in the box has changed over time and differed in certain regions, but the gist of it is that the code told the signal box which way to route a train.
The Southern Region was well known for using a simple two-digit display on their multiple-units and locomotives. This was because the Southern Region's traffic was both repetitive and dense. This meant that the first half of the code denoting the trains type and inter-regional destination was considered not as important as making sure the trains were routed correctly, with this in mind a simpler system using only the last 2-digits (demoting a destination within a region) was found to suffice.
Another variation of the headcode box was a split display unit on some older designs of a locomotive. This version featured two display boxes (one on either side) each showing half of the 4-digit code. The only reason this was done was to facilitate a centre gangway-door on the nose of the loco, but, the installation of such doors was a short-lived experiment and in its absence, a single 4-digit headcode box could be located in the centre of locomotive.
Interestingly, some locomotives were halfway through their production run whilst changes were happening. This led to some quite noticeable design difference within certain classes such as some featuring headcode boxes whilst others have discs and some having split headcodes while others have just one 4 digit display.
Still, it all makes for some very interesting modelling!
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