(The following scenario is based on a true story, but the details have been changed..the road names and numbers below were simply made up as an example.)

Lets say, hypothetically, that there is a small-town historical society, they happen to own a caboose. Their "home town railroad" was the Santa Fe.
But their caboose isnt Santa Fe, the caboose is New York Central.
Its a NYC bay window of a distinctly NYC style that never operated on the Santa Fe.
and this particular caboose never operated on the Santa Fe.

But since the town is a "Santa Fe Town" they decide to paint up their NYC caboose in Santa Fe colors..(that part is fine with me!) ;) but here is the part I find controversial:

They need a road number for their caboose..So they hit google and look up ATSF caboose numbers..They discover that number 999625 is a prototypically accurate Santa Fe caboose number, so that is the number they put on the caboose.

So now we have a NYC caboose, wearing an ATSF caboose paintscheme, and numbered as ATSF 999625.

What do people think about the choice of road number?
Do you think its fine? or should they have not used a "real" ATSF number?
instead just make up any fake number? or a number just outside of the prototype ATSF caboose series? or even the original NYC number?

Would your opinion be different if:

A. The real ATSF 999625 no longer exists, was scrapped.
or
B. The real ATSF 999625 did still exist! and was in fact at another historical society in the same state! not far away, and wearing its correct ATSF paint and number..In that case there would be *two* ATSF 999625 cabooses..one the real thing, and one the NYC caboose..

Im curious what people think about this..
thanks,
Scot

They spent the money and invested the time and effort to preserve it, so they get to select the number applied to it.

PC

Probably not the greatest idea in the world, from a preservation standpoint. But, like Thomas the Tank Engine (British prototype, never ran in North America) it might help to draw local public interest to railroads and trains. And probably only a visiting "rivet counter" from the other museum with the real AT&SF caboose will ever notice the number, whether real or made-up.

From a purists standpoint, I wouldn't even consider what they're doing railroad preservation. It's "playing trains".

They're not preserving historical items as historical items, they're actually damaging them by destroying some of the historic value.

Is this type of thing better than having the car scrapped? Yes.

But I don't think it should really be encouraged.

It'd be like taking a GG1 and sticking a 710 in it, or converting a PRR K4 to burn biodiesel. It has some PR value, but it's not doing the artifact any favors.

We recently purchased an ex-N&W sleeper that never had a road number in N&W service, it was a named car. It was sold to PRR and converted to a commuter coach in 1964, and then had various road numbers with different owners. When we entered the car into the UMLER system, we used the PRR number, as it was the earliest the car carried.

I am in my basement looking at two Athearn cabooses painted and lettered the Pennsylvania Railroad which seem to have been in service on various layouts alleged to represent the Standard Railroad of the World since the kits were purchased during my first back-from-Viet Nam shopping spree. Should I ever purchase a 12 inch to the foot scale former Southern Pacific bay widow or a Sante Fe five window cupola you can guess how they will be painted. You may even be able to surmise the road numbers I will use.

GME

Picking a number, possibly randomly, from the correct series is OK with me IF:

- They have exhausted all known means of tracking down the actual number
- They don't duplicate the number of a car known to survive

-AND-

-they are upfront and honest with their visitors about the possibility the car is wearing the wrong number, and explaining why they were forced to choose a number.

It's better than a totally fictional number, or no number, and the explanation serves an educational purpose.

And who knows, a visitor just may show up who holds the key to unlocking the mystery.

Steve Hunter

Gary--

Which one of the "County"/"College"-series 10-6 Budd sleepers did VMT acquire? Had it been part of the MARC fleet or NJT? Thanks in advance.

We had a slightly different "problem" at Pennsylvania Trolley Museum. We put in service a modified (regauged) GE 25 tonner. So far as we know, it never carried a number at any of its several previous owners. But for dispatching purposes at PTM anything that occupies track needs a number. Using a policy originally created for numbering off-rail equipment, the GE is now number 89--the last two digits of its GE serial, 31789. In this case the loco is not part of the museum's historical collection, so we can make our own rules.

Personally, I'd rather see items that are given new identities, such as the caboose in question, given historically appropriate but previously unused numbers. The next number after the last in a series would thus be at least representative, if it can't be totally accurate.

Real museums don't so such things in the first place however.

The Mount Rainier Scenic RR found a nice way to deal with this issue.

We run on a former Milwaukee Line. Our coaches are of various heritages, but not MILW. They include some SP commuter cars, Canadian coaches and an Alaska RR car. None ever ran locally.

For many years, we used a simple green paint scheme with yellow striping, somewhat like a simplified Pullman scheme. It was nice, and I liked it a lot, but green coaches in green forests don't exactly stand out that well. So a choice was made to pick a different scheme.

The current scheme is obviously inspired by the Milwaukee, with the orange and red colors but no MILW logos. Milwaukee fans will instantly make the connection. However, the cars are lettered "Mt Rainier Scenic RR", and assigned our in house numbers (based on car capacity).

While paying tribute to the Milwaukee, it also avoids any misrepresentation of what the coaches really are. It seems like the historical society could do something along those lines, maybe using the Santa Fe logo (in your example), but also lettering the car "Western Wimbly Historical Society" somewhere so it's clear in photos and the like.

Granted, it's their car and they can do what they want. However, if they're serious about the historical society bit, keeping things clear seems like a good plan.

It's paint.

Rainier,

The Roanoke Chapter acquired the "Scioto County" , former PRR # 1489. It is ex-MARC. It is currently stored at VMT

Thanks, Gary! I'll add the notation to my Pullman roster.



Bob--

Okay, now I'm stumped. I knew the MRSR had SP Subs, CP homebuilt coaches (via BC Rail?), and a CN baggage, but I didn't know that there was an Alaska veteran at the Mineral shops. What's the story on this one? Thanks in advance.

Also, just out of curiosity, I had heard a while back that the MRSR had acquired the 2 former MILW lightweight coaches that had been used on the Crooked River operation. Can you confirm, or was this just an incorrect rumor? Thanks in advance.

_________________
Posting from wet, grey, cloudy Seattle (in August),

Well, there is another Caboose that I am familiar with that has a similar but less convoluted situation. A museum (might be tourist road) has a NE-5 caboose (ex-NY,NH&H, ex-PC, ex-ConRail) that they have repainted to prototypical Penn Central scheme. The number they have applied was that of a caboose that was regularly assigned to their branchline back in the PCRR days. The stickler is that the caboose with that number exists and is at the museum I am connected to.

So we have a caboose restored to correct paint with a local number, but the caboose that wore that number still survives. With the renumbered car IIRC it was a case of someone paid for or did the repaint and decided the car number.

Personally it doesn't matter to me, in either case (theoretical NYC/SP caboose or this one) with the following caveats;
- car is maintained/restored.
- original number is noted somewhere easy to find on the car
- that it is not advertised as the surviving car (as in `Come ride the PC 118282' as apposed to `Come ride our caboose PC 118282') [118282 is not the car's number]
- If it is ever scrapped, when people ask they are given the real car's ID.

Rich C.

Look at the "flip side" of the argument:

I once was a volunteer at a RR museum. Most all of the equipment was in terrible condition, and lots of it was a rusting eyesore. I volunteered to buy paint and paint a piece of equipment.....my own $$, my own time, my own effort. I wanted to simply get a coat of paint on it to stave off the rust and deterioration. No one else took any interest in the piece, and no $ would be allocated towards it, as there was no available budget.

I painted it.

I got scolded for not properly prepping the car before painting. I got scolded for painting it the wrong color. I got scolded for not researching and properly painting and stenciling per original.

That was 25 years ago, and no one has painted it since.

My answer to the thread is that there is so much "preserved" equipment that is not getting attention and rusting into an eyesore oblivian, that ANY coat of paint, by ANYONE, with ANY number is better than none. True, it is not what proper preservation is, but "choose your battles".