I came by two of these pieces recently and have not an idea of what they are. The two are consecutively numbered, heavy cast iron with raised numerals. They are made to hang and you can see the hanger bracket in the verticle middle position. Anyone ever see these anything like this? They came out of an estate that had a lot of rail related items.

That is a signal number plate.

Kevin

One signal faces MP 286.0 and the other signal faces either MP 285.9 or MP 286.1. The number plates indicate that the signals are permissive block signals.

Depending on the railroad and the era represented, couldn't it also be MP 28.60?

Signal nameplates are numbered in tenths of a mile, not hundredths.

That may not always be true, at least not in contemporary practice. My experience in ex-CR territory was that some of their mileage location signs on line side installations were in hundredths. I can't remember specifically now if the any of the signal number plates were that way, but I know some things were/are. I don't know if any railroads before that ever went beyond tenths of a mile. That's why I asked. I know that it also goes the other way as well - some railroads only used milepost number plates to the nearest mile, and any additional number was the track number in multiple track territory. It's kind of jumbled in my mind now, but between the Lehigh, Trenton and ex-Reading SEPTA lines in NJ and PA, I think I've seen examples of both.