Model Railroading > Another item for the "There's a Prototype for Everything" file

A while back I wanted to change the number on a duplicate boxcar. I figured just the last digit will do -- keep it simple, right?
Well, the decals I had on hand were either too small or too big to match the existing car numbers. Being the impatient persion that I am, I went ahead and used the slightly bigger digit. After all, it's in N scale and with the naked eye, it's difficult to catch.
Then I see the old, beat up Operation Lifesaver 6720 on yesterday's (Friday) Dunsmuir Cam at 5:53PM.
Guess UP didn't couldn't bother to find proper sized decals either!

Nice catch!!

Steve

Speaking of duplicate numbers . . . after operating for years on a friend's SP&S layout, one night I discovered that I had two boxcars with the same number in my train. Until then, nobody ever noticed. Not even the owner.

Aren't we a little too obsessed with car numbers when nobody notices them anyway?  Just another thing on the long list of what makes us model railroaders wierd! 

cabman Wrote:
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> Aren't we a little too obsessed with car numbers when nobody notices them anyway?

You don't notice car numbers unless you're operating with a waybill system and you have one XYZ 123456 going to the pulp track and one XYZ 123456 going to the scale track and they're both in your train!

I never thought of that!

cabman Wrote: 
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> Aren't we a little too obsessed with car numbers when nobody notices them anyway?

Talk about obsessed, I don't even have a layout...

...yet!

There's a prototype for that, too.  Years ago when I was with Conrail, we somehow got two gondolas stenciled with the same number.  As soon as the pair left the shop, one was loaded and billed to a customer off line.  It showed up at the customer's siding a few days later, soon followed by the second car, an empty!

Bob