I love the numbers. In the late 60's I lived in Brookfield, IL and
worked for the "Q" as a Relief Agent-Operator at various stations and
towers. and saw the CZ (among other trains, too) almost everyday. I
remember seeing non-CZ cars in the consists, at various times. Not
just the extra tour cars in the summer, but straight Burlington cars
being used, especially domes, for any number of reasons. And I've
seen CZ cars on the Denver Zehpyr and the Morning Zephyr. That would
just add to your possible combinations. Yes, separate name plates is
really starting to sound like a great idea. Take one known documented
consist for some specific date, change your car names to match that
one train and call it good. Richard Forst, Tualtin, OR
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Bob Webber <rgz17@...> wrote:
>
> Well... isn't THIS a fine kettle of worms!
>
> You start playing with numbers, and the odds really start whopping
> you upside the head.
>
> There are 279,936 possible combinations of consists - with just the
> original cars. There are a possibility of 21,900 unique consists
> (playing a little loose with the date, and using a 30 year figure)
> over the years. Which means that, through the life of the CZ, using
> just the original cars, the unique consists would have been 1 tenth
> the number of possible consists (it would have had to run over 300
> years to exercises all unique consists, assuming that each consist
> was unique). Of course, there is a goodly number of non-unique
> consists, so that figure gets blown away. Of those consists, I have
> about 1/1000. to verify against. The odds of fitting something in
> that hole is not good!
>
> Which basically means, if you select 1 from column A (baggage cars) 3
> from column B (dome coaches), 1 from column C (dome lounges),
> etc. with no knowledge of any "real" consist, you have less than a 1
> in 10 chance of possibly getting it "right". And, if you do post '52
> ALL of this goes right out the window, thanks to the Q's equipment
> use and the influx of the second order (not to mention the foreign
cars).
>
> I think the idea of selling the name plates is looking better and
better...
>
>
> Bob Webber
>
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