Re: D&S - C&TS car swap - Boxcar #'s & oddities

For what it is worth;

The car marked "3102" on the outside with spray paint is actually 3192;

Interior shot of car marked "3102" showing it to be 3192. Marking on the other side of the car looks like "3102" as a chunk of the "9" has flaked off

Just behind 3192 / "3102" on the Tacoma siding was 3223 which was also suffering an identity crisis;

Notice that the last D&RGW paint and lettering job had the car numbered 3102!


A look inside shows the car's actual number, 3323, above the door. Notice that it was kinda sorta painted over with a quick dash of boxcar red paint. My speculation would be that 3102 and 3323 were in Alamosa being repainted at the same time and the numbers got flip flopped when it came time to letter them and the carman figured it was easier to "erase" the real number inside each car rather than redo all the numbers on the outside. (keep in mind that 3102 has not been painted at all since it left D&RGW ownership) *see post below for an update to this theory*

3323 also has another interesting stencil on it;

Notice the yellow "CNM" stencil below the spray painted car number (the car's correct number or at least first one, applied by the D&S)
This marking was applied to cars that the D&RGW was selling to the states of Colorado and New Mexico in 1970 so that it was easy to tell which cars went where and to who. Cars that the Rio Grande was keeping were marked with a small "D&RGW" and I would postulate that cars sold to the scrapper were not marked.

Thus the cars going to the C&TS are;

3192 (marked 3102 in spray paint on its side)

3263

3323 (still bearing traces of an errant "3102" numbering on its end

3560

All photos are from October 11, 2019 and I had permission from the D&S to be at Tacoma

Jason Midyette



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/09/2019 12:15PM by Jason Midyette.