Tom
This issued was explained on the Steam Freight Car List by Richard Hendrickson
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This numbering system was practiced on a
number of mostly mid-western railroads and acted as an error checking
device in the days when paperwork was actually on paper and was entered by
human (and therefore fallible) car clerks. Typically, box cars had even
numbers, open top cars odd numbers, and if a number didn’t correspond
with the car type, it was obviously wrong.
The Burlington used an odd/even system at some stage before 1885 with box,
stock and ballast cars with even numbers while coal cars and flats with odd
numbers, but furniture cars also had odd numbers. This may be because they were
in limited supply, with special handling instructions in the ORER, and needed
to be numbered differently to box cars. By 1885, standard numbering was being
used on all new cars apart from new furniture cars which were still receiving
odd numbers in 1890.
In 1901, the CB&Q purchased 100 ballast cars from AC&F and gave them
even numbers 9010-9208, in the same number group as old, odd numbered coal and
flat cars. I don’t know why they were not given their own number group
with coal, gravel and cinder cars in the 70000 series.
Rupert Gamlen
Auckland NZ
-----Original Message-----
From: CBQ@yahoogroups.com [mailto:CBQ@yahoogroups.com]
Sent: 01 December 2015 03:53
To: CBQ
Subject: [CBQ] dinner aboard Amtrak and a question
Had
the good fortune to run into BRHA member Gerald Edgar and wife aboard the
Capitol Ltd. and Saturday my wife and I had dinner with them in the diner. The
CBQ yahoo group came up and I mentioned my respect for the extent and breadth
of knowledge members possess. I had discussed this at Trainfest with Charlie
Vlk, too. So here is a general question for this great knowledge base:
Some
railroads (and not just small shortlines) will number a series of freight cars
like: Box Cars #400-498, even only; Flat Cars #101-399, odd only. Why the use
of only odd or even numbers, or skipping numbers?
Thanks
in advance. Tom Burg