mjmcguirk@... wrote:

From: Anthony Thompson <thompson@...>

no one has stepped forward
to create, organize and maintain one--a truly big job, as I know from
having just HELPED with one on another list--and perhaps the same could
arise with a STMFC Wiki. Anyone want to give it a try?


I nominate Dave Nelson to head this project up since he apparently has the interest and enthusiasm to see it through.

I also nominate Tim Gilbert to help him.

And, so it doesn't seem that I'll passing the buck (too much) I'll be happy to include any and information needed for the Central Vermont listing. I nominate Tony Thompson to handle the SP and Richard for the ATSF . . . wow, this is a easier than I thought it would be . . .

Marty McGuirk -- enjoying the sight of the nation's capital from my office across the river . . . with the windows open and bright sunlight streaming in . . .

Marty,

Are you buying lunch Saturday?

I have done all-time rosters for the B&M: - one between 1930 and 1994; and the other from B&M's 6/30/1914 Valuation Report through 12/31/1955. The prime source for both were ORER's in roughly five to six year segments with B&M Freight Car Class Card Diagrams & Data as a supplement. These rosters did not include paint scheme data; these I prefer to cover generally as to when reporting marks and stenciling formats changed as well as colors, heralds and slogans in a chronological time line. Some of the "paint data" was printed in the B&MRRHS' Modelers Notes #101 although I omitted the exotica, experimental and trivial in that discussion.

Feeling brilliant after those endeavours, I decided to tackle the New York Central armed with the ORER's and NYC's Freight Car Diagrams. Here, I was bombarded with changing Lot Numbers, rebuilds, renumberings, changing Mechanical Designations, etc.. It seemed that from the footnotes from the ORER's that the NYC assigned some freight car number series to the auto plants rather than car types. I gave up - Jeff English who forgotten more about the NYC than I will ever know said I was foolish to even try such a task. Upon further review, an all-time roster (1914-1960) of the Central may be a lot more complicated than a similar one for the PRR and, perhaps any other road - and not only because of NYC's Lot system. (I am omitting consideration of an all-time roster of the private owners including shipper's, tank and refrigerator lines.)

Dave Nelson has transcribed a 1950 ORER into a computerized data base which is a massive task by itself. Anybody volunteer to do a 1955, 1960, 1915, 1920, 1925, 1935, 1940, 1945 one, too so that changes in car numbers, ownership, retirements, acquisitions can be traced? (Before 1915, the ORER's would be fairly useless because the standardized format was adopted, I believe, only after the 1911 Federal Railway Safety Act.)

So I think that the group is not interested in all-time rosters, but would be more interested in a chronological time line of when colors, herald, slogans, data requirements changed for each road. (e.g. Between what dates and to what cars did the NYC apply the black background to the NYC oval?) Exotic schemes such as SP's orange bracing on the red oxide Overnight cars which Tony Thompson showed in the proofs to his SP Boxcar book in Cocoa Beach could be excluded - the Group should be interested in the usual which was often mundane - and probably not marketable to the "bozos" who may be classified as "aficionados of the esoteric."

Not promising anything now, Tim Gilbert