LV caboose mystery..Conrail mis-numbured.

Interesting LV caboose mystery!

I got an email from Cheryl D. (I dont know if they want their last name posted) of Allen township PA (Northampton).
Cheryl and her husband Bob have owned an LV caboose for 15 years.
It was stored at Keystone Cement in Bath PA until September 2005, when they moved it to their home, where it now resides,
still wearing Conrail blue...they plan to strip and repaint it this spring!

Cheryl and Bob believe their caboose is LV 95065, because the Conrail stencil very clearly says LV 95065.
It was CR 18615. (the CR number is not in doubt)
Pics of Cheryl and Bob's caboose:








I have this caboose listed on the LV survivors list as LV 95068:
http://gold.mylargescale.com/Scottychao ... umber.html
(its still listed under Bath, PA..I will update that.)
I dont know where the number 95068 came from for this caboose on the list..perhaps from the CR number..
although it appears Conrail did not renumber LV cabooses in anything remotely close to numerical order..
its totally random..which doesnt help matters..

so..what is the problem here?
if Conrail said this was LV 95065 (according to the CR stencil) then its probably LV 95065 right?
Not necessarily!

because we have a SECOND LV caboose that Conrail gave the exact same LV stencil!
a SECOND LV 95065 is in Milan, PA, still wearing its Conrail stencil that clearly says...LV 95065!
this cab is listed as CR 18642..probably also not in doubt..although the CR numbers are hard to make out.
the Milan Caboose:













So..Conrail made a mistake!
They stenciled TWO LV cabooses as LV 95065..
the stencils are clearly different patterns..probably applied at different locations and different times..
so which is the REAL 95065 then?
and what is the number of the other one then?

Roger,
I think you came up with the number 95068 for the Caboose in Bath..that number probably came from your original LV list..
do you know where that number came from? probably from the CR numbering records?
which can be seen here:
http://crcaboose.railfan.net/renum.htm#N-5G

I will start digging through photos for the 95065 and 95068 in LV days, see if any interesting differences show up..
although they are both the same class, Phase 1 Lot 1, so any differences will be minor..

Bob & Cheryl's Northampton caboose:
Was Conrail 18615
stenciled by CR as LV 95065

Milan PA caboose:
Was Conrail 18642
stenciled by CR as LV 95065

anyone have any ideas?
we need to correctly ID these two cabs!

Its *probably* correct that Milan is 95065 and Northampton is 95068..
but can we be certain about that?
if CR messed up the stencils, how do we know they didnt mess up the list?
(and we arent sure where the CR renumburing list on the CR caboose page actually came from:
http://crcaboose.railfan.net/renum.htm#N-5G
That might not be from Conrail..)

There was some talk on another thread about checking trucks for LV numbers cast into the trucks..
I think we determined that was a myth..
but I will ask Cheryl to check the trucks on her caboose anyway..
and I should be down to Waverly in a few weeks..I will swing by Milan and look over the cab there in more detail..

Cheryl also said anyone is welcome to stop by and check out their caboose if they want!
(thanks Cheryl) I have the contact info if anyone is interested..

Allen township PA (Northampton) is near Allentown/Bethlehem.

thanks,
Scot

As noted in another thread, the best bet would be to sand over the top of the end doors very carefully and see what LV number, if any, was painted there. Conrail didn't renumber them in order, nor were they particularly careful with what previous numbers were stencilled on them.

Maybe it's me, maybe it's not, but I'm seeing round windows on one caboose here, square on the other. It's very easy to swap doors around, I guess, but I still see this, as a difference.....