We don’t consider ourselves to be in the rivet counting rail fans category, but we do like to write down the physical car numbers of the SWC trains we ride on. (We’ll walk the length of the train and write down all the car numbers during the extended service stops in Albuquerque or La Junta.) We’ll also include these numbers in our trip reports.
Having these car numbers available for future reference sometimes comes in handy. For example, on an eastbound SWC No. 4, we drew a bedroom E where there was no hot water for the shower. On our return trip on SWC No. 3 15 days later, we again had a bedroom E where there was no hot water for the shower. By referring to the physical car number we were able to determine that it was same sleeper we’d had while heading east. On another trip, we were able to determine that our SWC No. 3 train had most (but not all) of same cars in its consist as the SWC No. 4 train we’d ridden on while heading east.
Using a railcam video that was posted online and which showed the same SWC No. 4 train that was involved in the Mendon derailment, we were able to record most of the physical car numbers. (We did compare them with the SWC cars from our trip last year and none of them matched.) We’ll keep these car numbers handy to see if any of them ever turn up in the consists of our future SWC trains.
