(erielack) Fw: [STMFC] NYC . . . S?

["Schuyler G Larrabee" <sgl2_@_ix.netcom.com>]

- ----- Original Message -----
From: Jeff English <englij_@_rpi.edu>
To: <STMFC_@_yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, January 09, 2002 11:18 AM
Subject: Re: [STMFC] NYC . . . S?


> "Schuyler G Larrabee" <SGL2_@_ix.netcom.com> relayed:
>
> > "Now for today's silly question: If the glass was moved on a NYC
well-deck
> > flatcar, as has been said, why can a "S" be seen before the number (The
> > rest of the lettering blocked by the people in the photo) in the
reporting
> > marks? I don't believe that I've ever seen a freight car marked "NYCS",
> > and none of the other NYC reporting marks seem to contain an "S" (NYC,
> > B&A, CCC&StL, MC, TOC, etc)."
>
> This was the 30s, right?  At that time there were lots of NYC
> System cars that still had numbers with "S-" prefixes.  The
> application of these prefixes seems to have ceased in the very
> early 30s, but they didn't completely disappear from existing cars
> until a decade or more later.
> On a flat car, the reporting marks and number would be on the
> same line, so it would be easy for somebody not familiar with the
> "S-" prefix practice to confuse it with the end of the reporting mark.
> It is true that there was never an "NYCS" reporting mark, nor can I
> think of any subsidiary reporting marks that end in "S" that weren't
> long gone by the 30s.
> So what does the "S-" prefix mean?  Still don't know for sure.
> Charlie Smith of the NYCSHS says it denotes a car whose total
> valuation by NYC was different (higher?) than the AAR standard
> and that this flagged a car for the acountants to apply a different
> standard for settling interline accounts for damage/repair.  This
> seems to me an awfully arcane matter to be managing by
> stencilling prefixes on car numbers.
> One thing known for sure is that just about all new cars built
> from the early 20s to about 1930 seem to have been "S-" prefix
> cars.  Rebuilds of older cars in the same era don't seem to have
> gotten the "S-" prefix, and that might support the idea that the
> prefix had something to do with value of the car.
> I thought I heard somewhere once that the prefix denoted that
> the car could be considered returned to home road when it arrived
> at any NYC subsidiary's interchange, thus saving a lot of wasted
> empty-car miles, for instance returning an empty B&A car from St
> Louis all the way to Massachusetts vs. reloading it on the
> CCC&StL.  This certainly sounds like it has a more practical
> purpose than an accounting foil.
> I haven't seen documentation supporting either hypothesis.
> There were also some Michigan Central cars with "A-" and "F-"
> prefixes, and in the very early 20th century, LS&MS was using a
> "D-" prefix on almost all cars.  The purpose of these is also a
> mystery to me.
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
>    Jeff English                  Troy, New York
>    Proto:64 Classic Era Railroad Modeling
>                     englij_@_rpi.edu
>
>    |   R U T L A N D     R A I L R O A D   |
>                Route of the Whippet
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