"EX" is a denotation peculiar to railroad record-keeping—it indicates a traceable, documented change in a locomotive's ownership or history.
All locomotives have pedigrees—which include their sales, trades, hand-me-downs, other types of ownership change, maintenance records, renumberings, reclassifications, original builders' numbers, and many other details—in paper trails starting at their manufacture, sometimes before the Civil War.
Much of this documentation is required by federal and state regulatory agencies. Some of it goes with minutiae-oriented railroad micro-management, and some is uniquely a characteristic of railroad aficionados.
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If multiple ownerships occur in a locomotive record, it could end up as a long string of alphabet soup. Here's a fictitious locomotive (but not very) history. I think you'll get the picture. I enhanced the pedigree with a little story (also fictitious) that illustrates why renumberings might occur.
- The Abscomb, Beling, Corson, Davies, & Eddestrom (ABCD&E), feeling its oats as the country recovered from the crash of '92, commissioned a batch of 12 new Ten-Wheeler 4-6-0 locomotives from Baldwin Locomotive Works in November 1897 with 68" drivers for secondary passenger service. This locomotive was the fourth of the group to be built, delivered in January 1898 carrying builders' plate #51107. The railroad classified it as an N-1 and numbered it #124 of group #120–131. The locomotive steamed well and had grates adequate to maintaining decent steam pressure and speed on undulating (hilly) track, so crews enjoyed operating it, although it was not strong enough for use in the mountains.
- The Framington, Gorchin & Hannihan Incline (FG&HI) purchased several well-trafficked branches when the over-extended ABCD&E filed bankruptcy in 1903, and the locomotive was transferred as a branch-line asset. The Ten-Wheeler was renumbered #300, though it kept its N-1 classification. FG&HI was, in turn, purchased in 1914 by absentee owner-financiers, who gutted the railroad's ledger and in three years reduced it to hand-to-mouth operation.
- The Jachsonville, Kallem, Linderton & Marshall (JKL&M) resulted from the 1918 reorganization of FG&HI by the United States Railroad Administration (USRA) to meet impending traffic demands of the incipient World War I. It was still owned by the same financiers but managed by people who understood how to haul cargo for profit. The tracks, stations, and crews were the same, but the railroad name was different. Nothing else changed about the locomotive or its number.
- Both JKL&M and the Nestorle, Offerton, Patterville & Quanset (NOP&Q) were going strong in 1926 when NOP&Q needed a light-duty locomotive. They traded a Jordan spreader to JKL&M to acquire the Ten-Wheeler. The spreader was #0363, so NOP&Q renumbered the Ten-Wheeler as #364 and, because they already had a class N-1 (a group of Baldwin Mikados), reclassified it as an L-1. The railroad hit the financial ropes in the 1929 stock market crash but struggled gallantly until 1933.
- The Ten-Wheeler sat unused on a side track from the 1933 bankruptcy of NOP&Q until the end of World War II. The Reston, Stockton, Templerville & Ulster (RST&U) bought it in 1942—intending eventually to scrap it for its wartime metal value. However, after firing it up for a test, the shop crews fell in love with the wheezing old kettle and persuaded management to keep it. Still numbered #364, the L-1 was used to push-pull bigger locomotives in and out of the roundhouse until the railroad became fully dieselized in 1957. Once again, the Ten-Wheeler was deactivated and grass grew between its forgotten wheels.
- In the 1959 merger of RST&U with the Vendeman, Westside & Xavierville (VW&X), the still-idled Ten-Wheeler, numbered back to #300 again but never painted to match the renumbering, rusted away under yet another new owner. In 1965, the Vendeman interests changed the name of their company town to Yellem and subsequently the railroad name became Xavierville & Yallem (X&Y). The same year, the railroad began catering to the growing tourist trade, running excursions pulled by the perky little Ten-Wheeler on a six-mile branch with balloon loops at each end. Before the start of the 1987 excursion season, the locomotive's federal flue certification expired, so it was extensively rebuilt and renumbered #3.
- The X&Y excursion branch was extended to fourteen miles in 1993. In 1997, Vendeman Enterprises donated the short line to the Zarcova County Historical Society. It was re-incorporated as the Z-line and operates as a non-profit all-volunteer organization. In keeping with the locomotives's history, the society reclassed it back to the original N-1 #124 designation for the 2000 millenium celebration.
So the 100-(plus)-year-old Ten-Wheeler's entire pedigree is: 4-6-0 Ten-Wheeler Z N-1 #124; X&Y L-1 #3; X&Y #300; ex-VW&X #300; ex-RST&U #364; ex-NOP&Q L-1 #364; ex-JKL&M #364; ex-FG&HI #300; ex-ABCD&E N-1 #124; Baldwin #51107. There, whew! I think I used every letter of the alphabet. |
And if you don't get that entire mouthful correct, some knowledgeable railfanatic will be sure to tell you the error of your ways. (BTW … don't ever call it a choo choo when the "rails," as the fans like to be called, are around.)
If you want more railroad strangeness—ABCD&E, FG&HI, JKL&M, NOP&Q, and RST&U, are all called fallen flags. Their corporate identities have been discarded, their company logos deactivated, their names no longer painted on rolling stock.
Here's a real-life example.
Narrow gauge Mikado 2-8-2 #476 was built new for the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad as the seventh of a 10-locomotive order (S1445) placed with the American Locomotive Company. Built at the company's Schenectady, New York, erecting plant, it was delivered in September 1923 carrying ALCo builder plate #C/N64987, classified as a C-127.
As near as I can tell, the little steampot was stripped of its wheels and shipped west on three standard gauge flatcars (engine, tender, and running gear). It traveled across the rails of New York Central, Big Four, Chicago & Northwestern, Union Pacific, and Denver Pacific. It was re-assembled at D&RGW's Burnham Shops in Denver, then shipped (on its own wheels) by standard gauge flatcar to Alamosa, where it was lowered onto narrow gauge rails and steamed for the first time.
Less than a year after #476 was delivered, D&RGW finally set about consolidating all the myriad details of its 1908 merger. The line reclassified the 10-locomotive group to K-28—for MiKado 28,000 pounds tractive effort (the locomotive's actual tractive effort is 27,600 pounds but the railroad already had a series K-27, a group of "Mudhens" with 27,020 pounds TE).
Seven of the 10 K-28s were retrofitted with steam-powered reversing gear. #476 did not get this modernization. In 1942, K-28s #470, #471, #472, #474, #475, #477, and #479 were shipped to Skagway, Alaska, for use on the WP&YR. They did not return. As power for its Alamosa-Durango San Juan passenger train, D&RGW retained #473, #476, and #478. The other two remaining K-28s did get power reversers, but #476 passed into history using a lever-controlled "arm-strong" method.
In 1980, the Rio Grande sold #476 and six other locomotives (including the other two last remaining K-28s), along with all the Silverton branch's track and buildings, two carsets of passenger trains, and a lot of other equipment, to Charles E. Bradshaw, who changed the line's name—and the lettering on the tenders—to Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad. The Bradshaw interests made no changes to equipment classifications and road numbers.
So, my favorite little kettle's pedigree is D&SNG K-28 #476; ex-D&RGW K-28 #476; ex-D&RGW C-127 #476; ALCo/Schenectady #C/N64987. Honest, I didn't make that up.
Just 92 years after the last rail was laid, the Rio Grande-named narrow gauge became a fallen flag. In 1996, D&RGW's flag fell, too, becoming Southern Pacific and quickly thereafter Union Pacific. In 1997, D&SNG passed to new owners, who did not change the tourist line's name. The slim gauge and its locomotives outlived all of its former owners. |
