Does anyone happen to be knowledgeable on Chessie Caboose numbering? Lionel has caboose 902440 in their catalog, was that caboose originally C-2440 or was the Chessie renumbering more complicated than that? The bellow pictures are of these cabooses after being retired and taken into new owners not necessarily how they looked on the Chessie. Thank you.
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The C-2440 designation would have been used when it was B&O and probably for the early Chessie era. Caboose numbering such as 902440 would be a CSX thing although I cannot vouch for the validity of that specific number.
Thank you. I don't usually think of these as being CSX cabooses.
The "90" prefix replaced the "C" on B&O cabooses effective April 1980. Photos of C&O cabooses from the 1950's show the "90" on some cabs, but later C&O caboose photos from the 1960's and '70's do not have it.
All of Chessie's Cabs (B&O, C&O, and WM) numbers were to be assigned the "90" prefix, effective 4/1980 in order for a then new Chessie IBM consist system to be able to accept the number. The new system was unable to recognize an alpha character as part of the car number (not to be confused with the letters in the reporting marks).
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