Is it safe to assume any builders plate from an in-service locomotive is stolen? As far as I know this one is in service.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vi ... NA:US:1123

No, it is not safe to assume that any plate from an in-service locomotive was stolen, you need to know a lot more about the circumstances and who removed it. It was very common for shop managers and CMO's to have plates removed when a locomotive was retired from its original owner railroad, and to use them as gifts to retirees and other friends of the railroad. If the locomotive subsequently went to a used equipment dealer, and then was resold to a shortline, it may have made those transfers without its builders plates. The serial number of the locomotive is heavily stamped into the underframe independent of the builders plates, they are not essential to identifying the locomotive.

PC

Plates were already gone from this engine when we purchased it.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, plates are also stolen by railroad employees as well as "railfan collectors." This never happened many years ago as employees feared for their jobs. I have talked with older former employees and they never took anything home. I have purchased plates from employees after a safe period of time has passed. Some of them would remove the plates from every locomotive that they worked on or ran. Ebay has opened up a whole new can of worms with plenty of reproduction plates being offered as originals. If the sale is final without any return privilege, be wary unless you know the seller.

Never is a strong word, and it shouldn't be used in this context. Conversely, I've talked with many former employees and current co workers who talk about taking more stuff in the old days, and less of it today, what, with cameras in major yards now and junk like that. Plus, we don't want to give the carrier any more reasons for firing us.

Not long ago, I came across a builder's plate from a locomotive at a train show. I was interested in buying it, as I'd had the engine before. When I casually mentioned this to the seller, he stopped and said, "wait, this engine is still in service?". I told him as of a month ago it was.

At that point he took the builder's plate, put it under the table, and told me it was no longer for sale.


And let's face it, this stuff still happens. And just because someone who works for the railroads gives away to someone, or allows someone to take it, does not make it "legal". An engineer or conductor cannot cannot allow someone to take an old signal sitting along the row, but we all know this sorta thing has happened.

And we can all sit here and be self-righteuous and scold and admonish others for accepting "gifts' and "permissons" under these circumstances. But it happens, and there are bigger problems worth focusing on. I may be making some enemies by saying this, but I feel as long as it is not endangering anyone or anything, the peice is unused, and is about to be thrown away (the railroad throws EVERYTHING away these days), I'll look the other way.

I'll throw this out there.... on some engines, the is sometimes at least one missing radio handset. This often leaves only the PTT button and the speaker next to the engineer for our radio. So, I lifted a handset out of a motor to carry around in my grip for next time I have a motor without a conductor's side handset.

I guess I am a theif? But here's the catch, the handset is from another railroad, it was taken by someone else, and put in the engine belonging to us. So who the heck knows.

Just sayin'.

The two legends I know of:

Seemingly most of the PRR GG1 builder's plates originally ended up within a fifteen-mile radius of the Wilmington, Del. electric shops. One I have actually had my hands on was given to a rabid-railfan Presbyterian minister in Wilmington in the 1960s by a PRR employee. Think about that one for a minute.

I was also told the story of two PC/Conrail employees who were fired/prosecuted for, as it was said, possessing an extra large lunch pail (whose bottom nicely held plates) and a cold chisel in the back pocket........

Those who have been here a while will remember that a well-known ex-Reading employee that offered up the builder's plates (and more) from the preserved Reading FP7's on eBay started a lot of discussion on the subject............

I'm reasonably sure that if all railroad artifacts of doubtful provenance were gathered together, they'd at least fill a caboose, and probably a baggage car. One of the more memorable Southern California stories is from the 50's, when Pacific Electric 5050 class cars were piled up on Terminal Island (in LA Harbor) at a scrap yard. I've been told that very few of these cars went to their doom with the PE air whistles still in place..... PE and/or SP kept some of the whistles because leased SP diesel switchers operating in the former Western District were required to have them in addition to the standard horn for sensitive residential areas, e.g. Beverly Hills. When the crews would head for "trombone whistle " territory, the engineer would try the extra air valve, and sometimes get just a rush of air. The Midnight Railway Supply had struck again! SP shop workers finally solved this by making imitation whistles out of steel pipe--they sounded more or less the same, but had no collector interest.
Regarding builders' plates--Santa Fe had some Alco switchers which had the originals replaced by steel plates with serial numbers and build dates applied by artistic use of welding equipment, using weld bead to form the characters. This home-brew plates were welded in place, making them secure against nearly all souvenir-hunters.

To add a twist to what WM 7545 said, I recently purchased 8 Motorola cab radios from a shortline railroad. The bill of sale says I purchased them from the "................. Railroad" but there were property tags from UPRR, CSX, and KCS on them. I'm sure the railroad got them legitimately in locomotives they purchased.

WM 7545, your thinking ahead and getting the handset most likely has, or will in the future, make it possible for a CSX to leave train on time (imagine that) because you have it and prepared yourself for the possibility of getting assigned a locomotive without one.

When a locomotive, etc. is rebuild, is the original builder's plate ever replaced?
When railroad throws old builder's plates away, is the trash company allowed to sell them to a railfan owned recycling company?

Yes. As a matter of fact, the same eBay seller had at least one rebuild plate up for sale when I looked. Morrison-Knudsen and Precision National, as I recall, had their own cast-and-engraved plates, and Paducah/IC did as well. There are actually accounting rules that go into play on such issues, regarding whether the rebuild is considered a "capital rebuild" or not. The accounting is explained on pp. 101-102 of The Doesel Spotter's Guide Update by Pinkepank & Marre.


If a plate ever gets that far, sure. But I doubt they're supposed to get to the scrapper or trashman. The one time I saw a fleet of locos being physically prepped for shipment for scrap by a railroad--Conrail's E44's--what plates were left were being removed along with cab equipment, horns, fire extinguishers, etc., and they weren't allowing any salvage.

Again:
It's said that of the 25 Hancock long-bell three-chime steam whistles that once graced UP Big Boys, an alleged 120 are in collectors' hands.
Of the 278 Leslie A200-156 air horns that rode atop PRR GG1's, and alleged 500-600 are in collectors' hands.

Caveat emptor.

On my road, there were extra blank lines on the General Electric Co. Builder's plate on 45 ton Diesel locomotive 390, so we put the rebuilding information there, instead of making a new plate.

There are also some "authorized reproduction" builders plates in circulation. EMD occasionally ran extra copies of plates to give to railroad officials, sometimes mounted on a plaque or framed. This was also done for some retirements. They also handed a few exact reproductions of plates for their historic locomotives, accurately stamped in the factory, to people who helped them out with projects over the years. This was done a number of times in conjunction with the open houses and anniversary celebrations.

And it was also not unusual for railroad officials to present a plate from one of their retired locomotives to a factory representative. This usually happened when the factory person had helped them solve a particularly troublesome problem with a locomotive that turned out to have been caused by something the railroad did rather than the builder. I recall an instance in the 1970s where two EMD representatives were presented builders plates by the CMO of a railroad for solving a problem that had been caused by the railroad trying to manufacture their own gaskets and not getting the oil holes punched in quite the right places.

PC

When a horn or similar part is replaced during the life of a locomotive, which is the real one? The original, or the one removed at scrapping?
Is this like buying a flag that flew on the United States Capitol's flag pole (for a short time)?

It may not be stretching the point to say that most preserved builder's plates, steam-era bells, whistles, headlights and other locomotive "jewelry" were probably preserved via the "midnight railway supply" method. I think many of us know some old-time collector - some names most here would recognize - who at least started out collecting from their local dead-line of steam locomotives after dark. I'm not saying it's right, but most railroads rules prohibit employees from even digging stuff out of the trash. When I worked for Amtrak, I remember talking to a commissary supervisor who told me that when Amtrak started, the Penn Central threw away dumpsters full of PRR dining car china that no one was allowed to salvage. We lose a lot of historically significant artifacts through policies like that. It's a small thing, but I have deliberately hoarded samples of most of the consumable Amtrak logo OBS items I used while I was an LSA - like napkins and menus. Some future archive will hopefully be able to better document the evolution of Amtrak's marketing practices because of this. I've long kicked myself that I was too cheap to buy some of the long-gone souvenir items from the cafe menu - like the little magnetic board games they used to sell, or the "pointless-arrow" logo blankets that they sold for coach passengers at one point.

To my former colleague, wm7475, I think many, if not most CSX T&E employees have, or have had some extra things that make operating a train easier, if not possible. The first time you get on a locomotive consist and realize that in four units there is not ONE reverser on-board, you'll learn to snag the next extra one you come across and keep it near and dear.




And, finally, at the risk of getting OT, flags that fly over the U. S. Capitol are never sold - they can be obtained for special occasions from Senate and House member's offices.