Comments on: We’ve all seen our fair share of quick-fix replacement number boards; some are done quite well while others leave a lot to be desired. The classic cardboard and duct tape type come to mind. CN 4726 has a pretty ugly replacement number board on the conductor’s side. It hasn’t inspired me to go out of my way to photograph it until yesterday when I heard 580 blowing for Stanley Street when leaving work. Upon reviewing those photos I noticed something interesting about that replacement number board. The “6″ looks like the font CP uses on their number boards. Zooming in on the photo you can see the weird looking “4″ was clearly made from a “1″, and there’s a faded “8″ where the “7″ is painted. 1800′s were CP RS18u’s. So how did a CP RS18u number board end up on a CN GP38-2? Then I recalled seeing a former New Brunswick East Coast Railway RS18u heading to Woodcrest (IL) for disposition after CN had reacquired the NBEC. Looking closer at the number board, it looks like “1838″ behind the crude “4726″. Sure enough NBEC 1838 was one of the RS18u’s that went to Woodcrest and was scrapped! So a little piece of a CP RS18u lives on. Now that ugly looking number board is pretty interesting! And if you’re wondering why Woodcrest didn’t just make a proper number board (assuming 4726 got the number board there), that’s a good question!

By: smithgl

smithgl — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 02:20:10 +0000

Excellent sleuthing, Rob!

Brundle — Wed, 16 Sep 2020 00:39:04 +0000

I like the possibility your caption presents. Most interesting indeed.