Assigning road numbers to preserved equipment.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

scottychaos wrote:

(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

Scot -

You have raised a couple of different questions here, and since you asked, I'll give my opinion.

1. Painting a NYC caboose in AT&SF colors and paint scheme because of its location in Santa Fe "territory"; no problem.

2. Giving it an authentic AT&SF caboose number....NO! Better to use a number outside of the actual Santa Fe numbers. Here's why; say thirty years from now, someone comes along and states that ATSF 999625 was the only known ex-NYC caboose to run on the Santa Fe. We have a photo to prove it! And we also have a Santa Fe caboose roster that shows that number! Think this couldn't happen? Who knows for certain what will happen in thirty years?

3. The actual 999625 was actually scrapped? Same as above; the NYC caboose was purchased to fill out the spot in the roster. This scenario actually did happen on at least one railroad (probably others) during days when cabooses were still regularly operated in service.

4. The real 999625 still exists elsewhere? Same story. Now we have two cabooses with the same number. Thirty years from now, the real 999625 may be explained as being a different AT&SF caboose just numbered into that number because they didn't know the correct Santa Fe number. An "unauthentic" number on the NYC "pretender" solves this problem.

My two cents!

Les

Bob Davis · **Joined:** Sat Aug 28, 2004 3:25 am **Posts:** 1025

The San Diego Railroad Museum has an Alco RS-2 in a Santa Fe "Zebra" paint job, numbered 2098. The only RS-2 that ATSF ever had was 2099, and it was scrapped. "ATSF 2098" can be called a "tribute unit"; it came from Kennecott Copper and the museum website give its "provenance" quite clearly.

Another question can arise when a car or locomotive was renumbered in the course of service, or worked on more than one railway. For example, Pacific Electric interurban coach 418 became LAMTA 1528 when that entity took over what was left of PE in 1958. After the Long Beach line closed in 1961, the car came to Orange Empire, where it has been restored to its appearance after the big PE overhaul project in the late 1940s, although it still has "1528" on an interior bulkhead.
Another PE "Blimp" from a related series, 457, has gone to the Western Ry. Museum, which specializes in cars from the Bay Area. I believe their goal is to restore it back to its Southern Pacific electric suburban configuration, with original number 332, sliding gates rather than doors, and a pantograph rather than trolley poles.
A current project at OERM is major body work on Santa Fe FP45 98, which is being restored as closely as possible to its as-built 1968 appearance as ATSF 108. Over the years it was 108, 5948, 5998, 102, back to 5998 and finally retired as 98.

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

crij wrote:

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.

Rich -

We have a somewhat similar situation at our museum (see the thread "caboose identification....a long shot"). There were 36 different IC cabooses in this numbered series and we have identified 10 other known survivors. We know the IC numbers of 8 of those survivors, but not the other two. We are going to give our caboose a number that is not one of the 8 numbers we know about, but the number of one of the other two could eventually be found out to be the number that we assign. In that case, we intend to change the number, even though that will be additional work. And it is also possible, that an additional caboose that today we do not know exists, could be discovered, and that number could be the number we put on our caboose. And if that too happens, we will change the number once again. Such is the joy of rail preservation, and the great unknown!

Les

Al Stangenberger · **Joined:** Mon Aug 23, 2004 12:59 pm **Posts:** 650

Bob Davis wrote:

Another question can arise when a car or locomotive was renumbered in the course of service, or worked on more than one railway.

Another good example of this situation is EMD's SD-7 demonstrator (EMDX 990). It then became SP 5308, went through various SP re-numberings until it was retired to Illinois Railroad Museum as SP 1518.

If it were my locomotive to repaint, it would become 5308 since I remember it well on tne NWP with that number. However, any of its historic numbers would be fine and the decision depends on the interpretive plans at IRM.

scottychaos · **Posted:** Fri Aug 30, 2013 9:53 am

Thanks everyone!
If anyone is interested, here is the real situation:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 8&t=152375

A group in Manchester NY painted up an ex-Conrail caboose in LV colors,
and gave it the number of a real LV caboose..and the real LV caboose with that number still exists! not far away..

I guess I didnt really need to "change the details to protect the innocent" but I was getting a lot of flack on a facebook group for daring to suggest that they made a poor choice of road number..(I was even called an a-hole because of it!) (spelled out in full) So I thought a fictional scenario would be better, to see what people thought about the numbering concept in a general sense..

IMO, it was absolutely wrong, and irresponsible, for this group to give the caboose that number..

Scot

Les Beckman · **Joined:** Tue Aug 02, 2005 1:25 pm **Posts:** 6482

scottychaos wrote:

Thanks everyone!
If anyone is interested, here is the real situation:

http://www.railroad.net/forums/viewtopi ... 8&t=152375

A group in Manchester NY painted up an ex-Conrail caboose in LV colors,
and gave it the number of a real LV caboose..and the real LV caboose with that number posting.php?mode=quote&f=1&p=201865#still exists! not far away..

I guess I didnt really need to "change the details to protect the innocent" but I was getting a lot of flack on a facebook group for daring to suggest that they made a poor choice of road number..(I was even called an a-hole because of it!) (spelled out in full) So I thought a fictional scenario would be better, to see what people thought about the numbering concept in a general sense..

IMO, it was absolutely wrong, and irresponsible, for this group to give the caboose that number..

Scot

Scot -

What you have here is a nice, already painted caboose, with an incorrect number. I can understand the folks not listening to a plea to get the duplicated road number off of their finished caboose. Here is a possible idea; the number is 95 019, with a space between the 5 an 0. Why not offer to paint a "1" in that space? Now you have a caboose with a completely different number (951019) that still looks like a LV caboose, and doesn't duplicate the caboose with the actual 95019 number. And yes, I know that the space in between the 5 and 0 is a "bit tight" but still think it could be done. If they agree, everybody's happy! Good luck!

Les

Stephen S. Syfrett · **Posted:** Fri Aug 30, 2013 10:56 pm

Being sensitized to the situation by not being able to find an original car number on several pieces of equipment helped me make a similar decision.

When a museum I was helping out decided to restore a nearly scrapped steel Southern caboose as a replica of a similar cab that had been purchased from SR and used on the local shortline from the late 1950's into the late 1960's, I didn't want to lose the car's true identity. When the car was being prepped and painted, we covered over the original road number on the center sill (SR X401) so it would remain. The number on the sides of the car (as Georgia Northern Railway X153) is obvious, but the center sill ID is not so much, but it's still there for the curious to find. As far as most museum visitors care it is THE original caboose, in spite of it being fully explained in a self-guided tour brochure that is handed out. Only later, after the cab had been completed, of course, did I find out that the original X153 caboose still existed as part of a caboose motel or B&B in North Carolina.