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Not sure the the reason was behind it all, but a BN dispatcher was trying to find a ride for a crew on another train. He finally picked out a Z-train headed in the right direction but had to call them because he didn't recognize the model of the 2nd unit. Lead was a Dash9, trailing unit showed as a DN0x1. The crew to be picked up hollered back 'better forget that one for us'. After some snickers and 'light hearted' razzing as the dispatcher tried to determine just what a DN0x1 was, they explained the 2nd unit was gutted, just one chair in the cab.... DNO-Do Not Occupy x1 1 seat. Guess everybody misses a few acronyms now and then.
A related story:During my time in the USN I once had to produce a report on a major maintenance evolution that we were doing during an overhaul period. My first attempt came back with the notation "Rewrite -- UNA". After spending a week trying to figure out what UNA meant, I finally went to the electrical officer (who had kicked back the report) and confessed my ignorance. It turns out that UNA stood for Use No Abbreviations. Go figure.Brad Meyer
My favorite is "TLA" which means "three letter acronym" Example: The computer industry has too many TLA's. Gary Cameron Grande Prairie "The last civilized stop before Alaska," AB Canada
While attending a training session in 1970 our instructor used a acronym S.W.A.G. which I used frequently in conversation there after in the electronics field of servo controls.S.W.A.G. = Scientific Wild A** GuessButch
SWAG was a kind of derogatory term in Nuke Power. If you fell to guessing it meant you didn't know and were too lazy to find out. Two of my favorites from the Nuke industry:SCRAM The first reactor was built in Chicago in 1942 as part of the Manhattan Project. Since they didn't know what they were going to get when they started it up, as a saftey precaution they had one large rod of Hafnium (enough to absorb sufficient neutrons to shut down the reaction) suspended over the core. The rope holding the rod led some distance away (to another room) where there was a man with an axe. If his readouts got too high he was to use the axe cut the rope, allowing the rod to fall and the reaction to be shut down. Scram supposdely stands for Super Critical Reactor Axe Man.CRUD The first two pressurized water reactors were opened at Chalk River and Shippingport. Soon after operation Both plants reported unexpected levels of radioactivity outside the core when the plant was shut down. After a time these were traced to corrosion and wear products (little bits of stuff) in the main coolant that had circulated throught to core, become radioactive through neutron bombardment, and then settled out in low flow areas of the main coolant piping. They are know as Chalk River Undefined Deposits -- Crud -- and are common to all PW reactors. (Supposedly when Shippingport reported this they wanted to name them Shippingport High Intensity Transients but Chalk River was first.)Brad Meyer
Even though Shippingport does have a High Level of Transients these days, they can't use S H I T. it has been taken by the fertilizer industry. When they ship dehydrated manure on river boats or by ocean going ships, they need to keep the burlap bags dry. If the dehydrated manure becomes wet, it will start releasing methane gas, which can cause an explosion. In order to prevent an accident, all bags should not be placed on or near the floor of the ship. Hence the bags always state:Ship High In Transit Rich S.