This would only be possible if the cars had some special equipment.
General service cars were free runners and stenciling really meant
nothing.

You could get around this by classifying a car "XP" but this did not help
that much until the advent of CSD 155 which is close to 20 years beyond this
group's time frame.

I have seen painting diagrams that specify that any assignment stenciling is
supposed to be re-applied to the painted car. There is no mention at all of
a method of determining whether the information is correct of if there is
even a Shipper at that point that is loading any cars. Those kinds of
painting instructions just sort of died out.

Russ
> Someplace that shipped flour is going to want an A class boxcar and if
the town it's in doesn't receive all that many boxcar loads the local road
might choose to label some
cars "when empty return to..."

Such lableing was no assurance of having the cars returned. It did not
supplant Car Service rules. Most railroads, other than the one doing the
stenciling, would hjust ignore the stencil.