I recently got a EMD builder plate in a trade (it's the same month and year I was born on) and I just realized the locomotive is still running freight on a short line.
I looked online for photos of the loco from the past and only under it's first Class I owners can you make out the plates still being on it.
So, that leads me to strongly believe it was removed long before the current owners got it.
That said, would I be opening myself to drama for posting any photos of it online, just in case someone decides to cause me problems if they ran the # and found the loco is still out there?
The issue comes up for steam locos that were on scrap lines and people got their builder plates legally before they were donated to where they are today (for example, a well known articulated loco's plates are in the trunk of the car of a train fan I know, who was allowed to remove them on a scrap line before they decided to donate it to where it is now) but I got to wondering about the same issue for diesels.
I guess I could blur the serial # on photoshop and post it only with the date, but I was just curious...

You have an interesting situation and rare find Lee.

Somewhat of an Applied Ethics question here.
Perhaps a, “What is a person obligated to do in a particular situation?”

I'm surprised among this passionate forum group... someone has not stepped up with an opinion yet.

Isn’t it a matter of between you and your conscience?

What is the purpose behind wanting to even post a photo of the plate?
The approach toward posting an obscured, “photo shopped” picture doesn’t seem to have any redeeming value.
Who gets any pleasure viewing blurred, poorly cropped or resized digital photography?

What about attempting to get the plate back to the operating piece of equipment?
Perhaps such an act would make more headlines, and grab needed positive railway preservation attention.

“…would I be opening myself to drama for posting any photos of it online, just in case someone decides to cause me
problems if they ran the # and found the loco is still out there?”

Surely there are some Sea Lawyers among the crowd here that could contribute further interpretive slant on this.

I say mount it on an aesthetically appealing piece of suitable material, and hang it on the wall next to your other railroad décor.

Posted photo? Your option.

John

The subject has been discussed before:

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5665

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=5680

Well, those threads are about someone looking to sell plates off a loco in a museum and the question on if they have the right and who might own said plates as someone mentioned that looking at photos, there weren't plates on them before the current owner got the locomotive in question. In fact, this loco has gone through over a half dozen owners in it's lifetime.
In my case, I'm not looking to sell anything. I was thinking if I had posted a photo of the plate with the serial # and some do-gooder came along and wanted to make life irritating for me, even though I have photos of the loco in question from several previous owners and those plates aren't there in any of those cases. The only photo I found with the plates in place were during its service with the Class I RR that originally bought the locomotive.

The subject has been discussed before as Alexander D. Mitchell IV highlights.

The entire history of the Steam Locomotive has been discussed before.
Over, and over, and over, and over.... and over "before".

John

I know at least one person that has a builders plate from a still in service gp38-2, and the employees know without any care in the world. He bought the plate off eBay. The rr figures that the builders plate doesn't make it run. They have the number recorded and can order parts to keep it on the road.

On the subject of privately owned plates for preserved equipment, it would be nice to at least make a mold of the original so replacements could be made. I would like to find the person who has the plate for our little alco.

The point of "been discussed before" is NOT to shut off discussion, but refer folks to (in this case) a long back-and-forth discussion of the very issues about which the original poster inquired--ownership (by one means or another) versus presumed "rightful" ownership. There's a heck of a difference between the loco owner not caring if someone else has the plates, and preservationists wanting a "stolen" plate back on their loco even if it wasn't there when they preserved the loco.

In the case of those specific plates, the loco(s) were not so much museum-housed as still operating as potential excursion locos, in two of the three cases.