The Chicago Aurora & Elgin interurban line had much the same problem: some sort of company directive (which has not yet been officially discovered in the files) specifically prohibiting the paint and repair shops from ever doing anything the same way twice. The numbers on the sides of the cars were all slightly different, as they were done freehand; ditto on the complex "Sunset Lines" heralds. I guess this was back when men were men and real painters didn't need stencils. Anyway, at IRM we tend to make a stencil of one of the original numbers, and use that stencil to paint all of the numbers on the car when we repaint it. In the broad scheme of things, a 1/64" difference in the width of the number "9" just isn't a big deal.
