Same here. It is indeed USPS policy, system wide. Any post office accepting such packaging is violating their own rules. This is amongst many changes they have made these past few years.
Good to know with the big Holiday Gift Shipping Season coming... thanks for the heads up. I'm friendly with some of the people at the local post office and I'm going to ask them the same thing.
It's a nice enough car, but I sure would have liked something signifying it being a Trainboard car. The number or designation ex: Car No. TB. 200009 or something like that. The main reason that I purchased the car is because it was from the Trainboard that I frequent just about everyday, and I obviously like this place. But that is nice enough Once again thanks for your efforts in making this project happen
I'd have to check my ORER, but I think this should be an XML car is you're doing the 'NEW' dates. Jason
Change the last four digits of the car number to 8466. ASCII code for "TB". Hopefully that will be enough to make it a "TrainBoard special" car, but subtle enough to assuage the prototype-fidelity crowd. I'm assuming the first 2 digits need to match the series the car was built under or something, otherwise I'd recommend they get changed to "12" (2012).
I like it. Yes it would be great to have something designating it a TrainBoard special run. The issue there is the rivet counters are not going to want it. Of course the rivet counters are maybe not that many? I just ordered them to have them and they will look fine on my modern era layout to all my friends.
My JAN '67 ORER list the 250350-250549 series as XML. Much of this series appears to have been assigned to paper service out of Arkansas (you can see the assignment to the left of the door). While there are variations to the ORER, the fact that the IL of the artwork is listed as 45'9", I would have to assume that this car has loaders installed which would make it an XML car. Jason
Yeah, unfortunately 258466 is a nonexistent car as far as I can see. Which is probably a dealbreaker if we're discussing whether the car was an "XM" or an "XML" at the time...
Jason, an ORER extract from 1976 shows "XL" for this class, like Ken has said, as well as all others with DF or Spartan loaders in MP service. Looking through it, I can't find any reference to an XML in MoPac service.
Okay, but I don't think there was an XL designation before 1966 and this car was built in '63. The car may have been reclassified between '67 and '71. his edit: In many of the photos you can see where the "L" has been removed and only the "XM" remains behind. And if this photo was larger, I think you would see "XML" http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1895233 Jason
It's possible that the class was modified in the late 60's. This car series was originally as the photo you refer to, with 5 digit road numbers. In the late 60's the MP initiated a system renumbering, with the cars receiving 6 digit numbers as ours will have, and in a photo I have from 1970 the class is clearly "XL." The vagaries of fleet histories, I suppose...in any case, I'm just happy to be another step closer to getting mine!
This is why I had noted the date of my resource. Unfortunately I no longer have other dates to reference. I loaned out other issues and people I'd thought were friends never returned MY books. Also, does having a Built Date of 1963 necessarily lock it into the identical appearance of as delivered, 1963? Being in the 250xxx number series wouldn't that date the car to a later year? Does that also mean it was actually rebuilt, more than renumbered? It has been too long since I last worked on a freight car, so I do not recall at what point we changed stencils to reflect Rebuilt. We are looking for photos. If anyone knows of some, link us to them. Or if anyone has car painting diagrams, the attention of somebody at MPHS to respond to inquiries, etc, etc...
I can help with one question: the build date doesn't lock it in. The "service" date would be more of a lock in. A build date in 1963 with the renumbering would still be good. I seem to recall an extreme example of this, a Santa Fe car that started life as a double sheathed boxcar, was rebuilt, and still carried a build date of 1912! Hmm, gonna have to look that up. The Morning Sun Color Guide to the MP has MI 250503 which was found in 1972 in its original paint, excepting the restenciled number and dimensional data. The build date was in 1962 and it's still on the car. I can't quite make out the service date, it's either 1966 or 1968. It's also an XL Classification. Under the "IN" in "ILLINOIS" there's a stencil about the paper service. There may be a "door thing" as this car had a nine foot door opening while the MTL body style has an eight foot door (both are the "Superior" type door, that's a brand name not an editorial comment!). I'll edit that it when I have a chance to check the ORERs.
Service date , and the repainted date , always carry more meaning in determining if a model fits an era . I wish manufacturers would stop concentrating on feeding us the new date and give us the repainted date if there is one .
Back with some ORER information... From the January 1967 edition, the series 250350 to 250549 is described as "Box, All Steel, Cushion Underframe, DF Loaders" with AAR Designation XML. It did have nine foot doors vs. the eight foot doors that the MTL 031 body style will have. Most importantly there are only two cars in the group at that time. That means that the renumbering from the series 96550 to 96749 had hardly begun; in fact there are still 196 cars in that group. By the April 1970 ORER the old series was down to 75 cars and the new series was at 119 cars. So the "old" set of numbers is going to be good from the build date through the end of the decade of the 1960s at least. If the use of the "new" number holds I'll need to decide if I want to renumber back to the original series, which is not a showstopper. And... the AAR Designation is XL, not XML, by that time. The net of it is that depending on your personal implementation of Rule #1, the modeler may want to make some minor changes to the lettering.
