The Real Story about 9378...

Back when I started at the C&TS in the early 1980's - this was before anyone even thought about the Friends Of the C&TS - I came up with the idea of a 1920's vintage freight train. I searched the yard for candidates to be used in my dream. I wanted one of each type of car (box, flat, gon, dump gon, etc.). One of the criteria was that it have some of the original construction left and hopefully didn't get all the rebuild parts in the 1920's. I selected box 04444 as it was basicly unmodified when converted to outfit car duty, there was a 3000 class box I earmarked because it had the orginal doors. But a 3000 class box would have taken a bunch of work to backdate. I selected dump gon 756, but wasn't sure what I'd have to do to back date it as at the time photographic data was tougher to come by. I chose 9378 because it still had it's wooden draft gear - the only gon on the RR to have missed getting steel Economy Draft Gear and body bolsters in the 1920's.

The 9378 didn't get its modifications until the late 1980's after the FOCTS was formed. Back when the "projects committee" consisted of 3 guys -including myself - getting together over coffee at Fosters and saying "what are we going to work on this time?" I suggested my 9378 idea. It was easy, fun and simple to do. The only modifications I needed to perform was removal of the top board, cutting down the posts and trimming down the corner brackets.

If I recall I managed to find enough remains of the 1920's lettering hiding under the paint to trace off the stencil. I even made up an air test date of "Leadville 9-08, C&S" for the air tank underneath.

now you know the rest of the story.....