After this post on another forum:

True or False It Happened to Jane or the Connecticut Valley RR

I was watching the movie once again, and it brought a memory from long ago. I seem to remember that on a trip to the Valley(1980s?) I came across an outside braced box car that had the letters "EP" on the door. It was on a siding on the Old Saybrook side of the line. If you stood on the lead to the engine house and looked towards Old Saybrook you would see the door of the car it was off in the bushes to the left. Somewhere I have a picture of it.

I remember talking to some people about it when I found it and I remember being told that it wasn't the car from the movie and that it got painted that way as a joke for someone. I also seem to remember that I was told the car was traded off some time later.

Like I said True or False

Have any other museums perpetrated a public hoax as a gag and not as an effort to, lets say, paint up a steam locomotive for a local RR for "atmosphere".

The "EP" referred to was for "Eastern & Portland", the frictional RR in the movie.

PS. I'm still chuckling at the longevity.

PPS. The car in question is now in Steamtown - it was shipped, I think, with one side in the E&P livery. Don't know how long it lasted before being repainted.

Out here, the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base has "Celebrity Row" on the Aerospace Maintenance and Regeneration Center's facility. One example of every major aircraft stored at the facility (C-5A excepted due to size) and historically significant aircraft appears there. Some wag decided to have fun with the visitors who visit it and made up a sign for the F-117 Stealth Fighter. Driving along the line, one sees a gap with the sign there but nothing behind it. The tour guides like to say "It's there. You just can't see it because it's in stealth mode." The guides are from the Pima Air and Space Museum, which provides weekday tours of the AMARC.

FTR, AMARC currently has 4,000+ aircraft located on the facility. All of the Vietnam era combat aircraft have been processed out, the last being a group of C-123s that were contaminated with Agent Orange. The only Vietnam era aircraft left on facility are the early C-5As, perhaps a few C-130s and C-9s.

When the stealth fighter was a powerful rumor, so much so that the USAF was no longer publically denying it's existence yet refused to show photos, airshows at military bases often had a roped off set of wheel chocks spaced out like they were around a set of unseen landing gear with a sign saying, "Stealth fighter display." Sometimes they'd even have some poor Airman with an M-16 standing behind the rope, 'guarding' a plane that isn't really there.
Funnier still, people would take photos of that like mad.

Back to trains... I'm not sure this is exactly what the OP had in mind, but I remember at least one NYC twin hopper that left IRM after delivering coal with a full set of white tires. It seems it was spotted next to an engine getting its tires painted, and the paint crew couldn't resist.

A paint job on something left over from a movie that never got re-painted is one thing, but why would a museum want to purposely mess with the public?
Any museum that plays jokes on the public doesn't sound like a museum I'd wanna go to.

One of the best ones I've seen wasn't at a museum. There were two railroad bridges over the Parkway just outside the tunnel leaving downtown Pittsburgh. For years they were lettered "Lionel" and "American Flyer".

As for museums, there was on operation that had a locomotive lettered "Spaghetti Western" for a time. (There was a time many western movies were shot in Italy, and they became known as spaghetti westerns.)

One of the volunteers thought it was very humorous and so he had a set of decals made up. It didn't last too long, not everyone saw the humor.

While in the Seattle area, the 4449 and 844 crews played numerous gags on each other. It started as soon as 844 arrived, Steve Lee promptly re-lettered 4449 as UPY 4449 using a magnetic logo.

A few days later the 4449 crew had large and very well done "SOUTHERN" lettering made up. They got there early and put it on the tender of 844 so it read "Southern Pacific" rather than UP. It blended in well, and the lettering matched nicely, so the 844 crew didn't notice for some time. (When's the last time your carefully read the lettering on the tender to see if somebody changed it?)

Lee, there's nothing wrong with a good joke if it's presented properly and obvious enough that most folks realize it's a joke. More than one museum has re-lettered a caboose Lionel. I think most people realize it's all in fun. Did you fall for the stealth fighter gag?

The car in question was not on public display at all.

As to why purposefully mess with the public, I agree, but stranger and more mundane things have happened & volunteer organizations should & do have their humorous moments.

One of them is when the RMNE RS-3 NH 529 was in service about 15 years ago (and beforehand on the Valley RR), it had a handset radio. It also had a toggle switch on the control panel, which when thrown, set off an alarm bell. The engineer sometimes would ring the bell, pick up the handset, say "hello", mumble something & hold the handset out to a rider & say "It's for you".

Now, having a funeral trolley car with a coffin & corpse for Halloween would seem like a good gag.

#122 at MATA in Dallas at one time had the face of its wheels painted white and for good measure the tire size was lettered on it per automotive standards. I can't remember if they included a brand name like "goodyear" or the like.

Hi,

I was just recalling about my first visit to the CRRM in 1972.

I walked all over the museum and photographed everything and wrote down numbers.

Back home, I realized that there were more cars with numbers and photos than I thought I had seen. Surprise, Surprise, Surprise - a few of the cars had been painted differently on each side.

One I recall was a Montana Southern box car and an F&CC(?) box car.

This was not a gag but it was an interesting way to represent the two owners.

Doug vV

OK, I'll fess up here; decades ago the Portola Railroad Museum (it's name at that time) had Rock Island Alco FA that was deaccessioned to a museum back east (I forget which one). A few weeks before it left, I had an afternoon off, and the weather was pleasant, so I went over and painted "American Flyer Lines" on the nose, and "Built By Gilbert" on the rear sides. The paint job on it was pretty bad, so knew I wasn't damaging any historical fabric. Thought for sure it would snag at least one photo on the trip back east, but never heard a thing. Did get to show it to a nephew of AC Gilbert, who stopped in to visit the museum. Somewhere I have a photo, but it's film & I don't know just where it's stashed--would have to scan it in to share.

David -

A Rock Island ALCO FA diesel saved? Really? Sure would like to know where it ended up, painted American Flyer or not!

Les

On the Washington D.C. Beltway, as one comes around the Outer Loop from College Park/I-95, the Mormon Tabernacle looms large over the horizon as one comes around a curve and over a rise. looking for all the world like the Emerald City in The Wizard of Oz.

So, of course, for years graffiti vandals have undertaken, at considerable risk to life. limb, and permanent record, to letter the next overpass, which carries the former Baltimore & Ohio northwest to Rockville, SURRENDER DOROTHY........

This is one that was planned, but didn't actually happen. Last year, a friend of mine from up north (an occasional poster here) thought he might make it to Roanoke on our Christmas train ride weekend at VMT. He had just been involved in a "hobo" themed event at another museum and said he might wear his hobo garb. The trip didn't work out, but if he had made it, we were going to chalk "Worcestershire to 10th St on 41" on the back of the electrical locker across from the boarding area....

Not a museum per say, but the Yreka & Western had "A#1 to Portland on the 19" scratched onto the water tower. Of course the main attraction at the now moribund tourist pike was engine 19 from Emperor of the North.