The Montgomery advertiser., 1906-10-24
A GREAT WORK.
How the Pennsylvania Road is Num-
 bering Its Cars.

How the Pennsylvania Road is Num-
 bering Its Cars.
 | A Philadelphia Special.
 As one big facility in moving and 1 taking care of it's nearly a quarter oi a million freight and passenger cars the Pennsylvania Railroad Is having | them all renumbered. It Is a giSan- tic task. one that will take fully year to complete, but when the work Is don' there will be none of the contuslof
 which has brought grief to the Penn sylvania's car record ofhce ana car ac Icountants of other roads.
 Troubles arose from the fact thai | ever,t one of the individual companies which go to make up the PennsylVania System had its own car numbers. In addition to that. the similarity of the legends, Pennsylvania" and 'Pennsyl- vania Company often caused one should have been. In the system there might be eight or ten cars with the same number, and if the small initials of individual ownership Were lett oue of report there was no way or tell- | ing wha. car was really meant. For example. take the number ol5. It was gondola car on the Northern ley. the West Jersey and Seashore: 1t was d box car on the Philadelphia. Baltimore and Washington. the F. C. St. L., and the Erie and Pittsburg: and 1t was coke car on the Pennsyl- vania Railroad proper If some agent sent in a report on 'Pennsy4vania, 2.- Ol5," neglecting to mention the small CT initials. he might be reporting on any one of the seven.
 When q Pennsylvania Railroad car was reported as Pennsylvania Com pany car, or when any car was not re. ported with all the lesser details. It caused vast deal of trouble and ex- pense As matter of fact. the small initial of individual ownership were overlooked and not reported in ma To do away with the confusion it was decided to renumber, the entire car equipment. both East and West. as signing to each lesser company lnclud . ed in the system certain series Of consecutive numbers, this series being further divided so as to indicate kind. class and capacity. The result Is that the number alone will tell all there IS about car to know, as 1t can be iden- tifed by referenne to the official list. It is very intricate and complex job to get the new numerals on me ly when one considers that the ears or a big railroad system are scattered over the whole country, many or them staying away from nome months even years Before such one can be re- numbered, of course, 1t has to return to the Pennsylvania system.
 The work is now proceeding very Dering was mapped out in the Penhsyl- vania oftlce at Altoona. table was made, showing the original number CT every car ana lut new HuIlNtI II Wfto to receive, besides the kind, class anu capacity. Then copies of this table were sent to agents all over the Sys- tenn, every one being directed to LOOK out for unchanged ears coming into hls territory and change them at once. The result or this scheme has been that the new numbers nave been put on with great despatch.
 To the passenger cars belonging to the lines east of littsburg are gwen the numbers 1 to 1000 and to those be- longing to the lines west oi PlttspurB the numbers 1.O01 to 10000. The freight cars are numbered from l0,oOl to 500,00U on the eastern lines ana from 5U0,001 to 999,933 on the western lines.
 To make the task as easy as possible it was arranged that the largest owner ship, namely, the Pennsylvania Rall- road proper, should carry the lower numbers. This meant that in the new scheme many ears would fdI into the proper class, without having to be lc- numbered.
 The cars are to be reprinted, too. but that is of necessity, much slower work than the rcnumbcrlnB. There are comparatively few places where IL can be done, while new numbers can be put on at pretty nearly any station where there is d small paint Shop. When the rcpalntin8 Is lone every car on the castrrn hn,s Wul nave the word "PennsylvanIa' on the side, R. R." on the end. On the western lines "Pennsylvania' Lines will be the legend for the side of d car ana