My friend posted a picture of this Water tank car, it is stenciled MRL 100014 however, if you look closely, you will see a NP 255 stenciled on the frame to the right. I did some research and NP 255 would have been a passenger car and the tank cars were no where near either series, does anyone have any information on this oddball? My friend who took the picture is asking as this surprised him. MRL 100014
In 1968, Northern Pacific had three scale test cars, numbers 252 - 254. Is it possible that they added one between 1968 and the merger into Burlington Northern in 1970? My question is though, why would MRL patch the car with the old NP number? Could this mean something else? Here is a link to the Northern Pacific Railway Historical Association page listing the scale test cars: http://research.nprha.org/Lists/Miscellaneous%20Equipment%202/DispForm.aspx?ID=30&Source=http%3A%2F%2Fresearch.nprha.org%2FLists%2FMiscellaneous%2520Equipment%25202%2FStandard%2520View.aspx
found a picture of it in Todd Sullivan's book "NP color guide to frt and pass eqpt.' on page 108. It started life as UTLX 66497 blt in 1920 or 1929. Doesn't say when it was converted to scale car NP 255. The pic is from missoula in 1969 and it is orange in that pic too.
