Prototype details (various subjects)
Miscellanious: Paint, Roster numbering, Photos
This discussion about rolling stock roster re-numbering history requires more scholarly investigation but here's some details that I have determined.
There has been a number(3 or 4) distinct roster renumbering prior to 1913 to rationalize ordering and reserve space for future growth. Between 1910 and 1913 road numbers was expanded from 5 digits to 6. Existing 5 digit numbers were changed by prefixing existing numbers to move them into their respective class grouping. e.g., 58000 to 158000
The 1910 to 1913 roster was rearranged in the following fashion:
1 to 9999 passenger cars 10000 to 199999 standard house cars, e.g., box cars 200000 to 290000 special house cars, e.g., stock, reefers, ventilation, machinery 300000 to 399999 open cars, e.g., flat, gondola, ore, hopper, tank and low 300k numbers were OCS (later moved to 400000 series) 400000 to 499999 OCS, vans House cars were painted mineral brown and consecutive numbered. Special house cars were mineral brown and either consecutive or even numbered depending on class. Open cars were painted black and odd or consecutive numbered depending on class.The important point is to pay attention to freight car numbers!
After 1913 the roster was generally left untouched except minor shuffles to reserve space for specific classes of cars.
To complete the story, the passenger roster was reorganized at this time too.
1-99 Private Cars 100-349 Suburban 350-1699 First class 1800-2299 Second class 2300-2399 Wood Tourist 2400-2899 Colonist 3100-3399 Combine 3400-3799 Mail 3800-4499 Baggage & Baggage Express 4500-4599 Horse Express 4600-4699 Fruit Ex 4700-4899 Mail & Mail Express 4900-4999 Thru baggage 5500-5899 Ex Reefer 5900-5999 Box Ex 6000-6399 Tourist 6400-6499 Restaurant 6500-6899 Parlors and Cafe Parlors 7900-7999 Open Observation 9000-9300 Motorized coachesYou'll notice something a bit weird in that 3000-3099 wasn't used. This block was reserved for tourist cars delivered in 1911 and 1913.
This was corrected between 1917 and 1919 where the numbered car roster was finally rationalized. Named cars were changed too for consistentcy which involved assigning temporary numbers to free names. Parlor cars, which were named cars at the time, were assigned temporary numbers and parked in their respective number seiers. This period of time is really confusing to understand.
The end result for named cars were:
Diners Named after British manors, castles and locations Sleepers Named after Canadian locationsThis pretty much was the roster configuration right until the end of revenue passenger travel. The numbered Budd cars filled the unused 100, 500 and 3000 blocks. Standard G,H,I,K series sleepers that were reassigned to tourist service in the 50s retained their names instead of numbers. These were reconfigured as 13 section cars by skillfully removing the drawing room door. ;-) The end was insight for them so why do much more.
Stenciling:
The decal sets included in my models are for mid-1920s. In this time period capacity and dimensional data labels were abbreviated. Prior to that, say 1913 to mid-1920s dimensional and capacity data was spelt out in full. We can do special dimensional decals if you model the earlier period.
More coming!