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Over the years I've accumulated a stock of leftover decals. In the case of my WM hopper fleet, I went ahead and ordered some custom decals that gave me updated reporting marks and numbers, so there was no fiddling with cutting out individual digits. I just matched the font and size as closely as practical for the old Roundhouse hoppers, referencing the roster to make sure the numbers were reasonably accurate.
I always used the tried and true (and free and effortless) strategy of just not worrying about it. This is N scale. Other than close up photos, does anybody ever even look at car numbers? I'll bet you $50 that I could run a unit train at a show with 100 cars, all the same number, and nobody would ever notice.
That guy had too much time on his hands. He needed to get outside and railfan a real railroad!
Before you get too far, start a spreadsheet with all your cars including reporting marks, car number, type and notes (for paint schemes, loads and other odds and ends). I have about 1600 cars now and keeping track of the car numbers can be rather difficult.I do end up with duplicate numbers. I may not have my spreadsheet handy during an impulse buy, or I may have just needed several cars of a certain type and the manufacturer didn't provide enough car numbers. Your auto racks are a perfect example of the latter.
I can tell you the spreadsheet will work.
COuple of decades ago, during model train shows where my local NTRAK club had our layout setup, there was a guy with a notebook and pencil who would carefully take down all the road numbers on our long trains. He would notice the duplicates for sure. Back then, some members ran 100-car coal or grain hopper unit trains, and he would let us know that he found duplicate numbers! I haven't seen him for years, but the memory remains.
And had good eyesight. I can read N scale numbers, but not in a moving train, at train show distances.
Maybe he was trying to figure out if you had some numbers he didn't already have for his own long trains? It's darn hard to make even a coal drag that has 100 decent cars from the same era without duplicating numbers. My 12-car "cut" of MTL 40' stock cars has only 2 numbers for reporting marks.
On a small-medium sized layout, this really only comes into play when you've got multiple car types / unit trains.I've been careful to have cars that are in actual switching operations have unique reporting marks, but the 'run through' car blocks that are about 60% of my car fleet I could care less. That includes the covered grain hoppers, piggybacks, etc. About half of my cars in switching were custom painted by me anyway so the car numbers were put on with decals.When I did the YK unit train of Roundhouse Thrall hoppers, I had custom decals made for the Ga-52 series, and individually painted and numbered all 35 cars. Yikes. I think it's a lot more noticeable on a true 'unit train' where suddenly you realize every car has the same number and they are adjacent. But spotting two same-numbered boxcars in a fleet of about 250 cars, right.....I do have all cabooses, locomotives, etc. with unique numbers, they are mostly all custom painted anyway.