Is it important to you to have unique numbers on all your cars?

Not important I am playing not working LOL

I run several unit trains and the longer the train is the harder it is to have unique numbers.  I think the only one that will notice is the owner and not any guests or visitors.  What do you think?

 

Art

Nice thing to have, but not crucial...my train of Gov't of Canada grain hoppers has eight cars carrying road number 110060. I did attach stickers to the underside identifying which 110060 each particular car is, but that's only for collection purposes and matching a particular car to a particular box. When the train is running, I doubt anyone other than those looking for unique numbers would notice.

 

I'll add that I can see how it would be rather important to some others though.

 

---PCJ

I have different number cars when I can.....like MTH N&W hopper sets they have done with different numbers.....but I have a few Weaver box cars....all the same number....I just run so numbers are not that important.....visitors never notice.

Only really important if you plan to operate like a real RR and "deliver" the goods.

No.  Actually, with my eyes being what they are, I can barely read the freight car numbers on, say, a coal porter hopper when it's standing still.  If there's a unit train of 'em running around the layout, forget it!     The numbers are a blur.  

 

As Nick said, it's play not work.  

 

- Mike

Not important to me either. I have never had anyone visiting point it out to me so they must not have ever noticed.  Even the grandkids have never mentioned it and they handle the cars more than I do.

Art:

 

For your application, where you have had run sessions with specific manifestos for the operators, I would think that unique car numbers are very important.

 

But for me, this is not an important factor. However, most of my passenger cars do carry different car numbers. 

 

Very good thread topic!!!!!!!!!!

Okay, I will be the dissenting voice here. To me it is very important that my trains have unique road numbers. Maybe it is OCD on my part but it really bugs me when they are all the same. That is one thing I like about MTH is when you can buy the 6 pack of road numbers and if there are 2 of those and the 2 single sale cars you can get 14 different road numbers. I wish Lionel would to the same. Atlas is pretty good about offering 2, 3 or 4 numbers per run. What I would really like to see is production runs with all data and a blank spot for the number with access to decal sheets (manufacturer supplied maybe) I then I can create as many unique road numbers as I need.

I prefer to have individual numbers, but like you said, the longer the train, the harder it becomes. I do have a couple duplicate # Reefers so I just put them at opposite ends of the train. Most people wouldn't notice anyway.

No.

I do host regular prototypical operating sessions and it is very important that all road name/car number combinations are unique.  It's okay to have Reading 12345 and B&O 12345 but two cars that are NYC 12345 are a no-no.

 

It's been tried by once Roundhouse in HO and SHS in S.

Lead balloon.

 

Rusty

For some reason it is very important to me to have different road numbers.. Part of my O-Gauge OCD I guess. i don't want to spend money buying two of the same item.

 

I THINK I might be able to let myself get away with it if I was to put together a l-o-n-g coal drag.

I've kind of been wrestling with this issue myself. The way I see it, it really only matters for cars that will be going to industries. So all your passenger cars, and unit trains, don't need unique numbers. That includes intermodal cars.

 

in my case, the layout and car pool are so large, that it would be difficult to detect multiple cars with the same number, even if they were being sent to industries, as long as they are not in the same train or sharing a common destination. A likely scenario would be that one car is circulating between yards and industries while its partner was stuck in a train in the hidden yard (off stage).

Chugman,

 

I prefer to have different numbers. I had MTH 4 bay hopper cars stripped, painted and renumbered a couple of years ago. I used different numbers on each car & used birthdays, anniversary date, address's etc. on each car. I recently ordered 4 of MTH's 3 car hoppers sets in CSX which at the moment I think I will leave as is when I run them.

 

Joe B.

I wouldn't want two adjacent cars with the same numbers. And if it's a unit train I'd want at least four different numbers.

Different numbers are a good feature but not a must have. If I only have two of one identical car, than more important.

 

Clem

 

No, it is not important to me, although if I had my "druthers" I would prefer unique numbers when I have two or more cars.  I have around two dozen PFE reefers, and I think I have four or five pairs with the same number.  Same with sixteen ATSF map-slogan cars.  I've bought two of several locomotives where I had to get the same roadnumber (e.g., H7) and those I do go to the trouble to re-number, etc.