All About Aurora Postage Stamp Trains |
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Aurora used three-digit numerical suffixes to identify the road names for train sets, locomotives and rolling stock, which I've dubbed Road Codes. By contrast, Trix used a unique catalog number for each car type/road name combination—something that Aurora started doing (albeit inconsistently) with train sets and locomotives beginning in 1968. Unfortunately, the 1967 catalog and 1967 Service Manual were the only places these codes were published, and these didn't contain all of them. Since road codes appear sporadically on packaging, there are a number of them that remain unidentified. In some cases, cars that appeared only in sets had no codes. It's entirely possible, however, that some road names may never have had codes; the shipping cartons for the 50' mechanical reefers, for instance, were only identified by the road name. Furthermore, I've never seen plastic box inserts with road codes for piggyback cars, depressed center flatcars, 50-foot center flow cars, 50-foot double-door boxcars, or 50-foot covered hoppers. If you should find a box or document with a road name and/or road code that's not on this list, please let me know so that I can update it. Believe it or not, people rely on this resource for correct information. Thank you! NOTEThere's a potential conflict in the road codes. 350 is unambiguously Rio Grande, since it appears on a cattle car insert, as well as the 1967 catalog and 1967 Service Manual. However, there's a flat car box marked 4881/350, yet I've found no evidence that a Rio Grande flat was ever released. The box I have contains a Norfolk & Western flatcar, which could be the wrong car; however, it's a legitimate Postage Stamp product. I've yet to find a box marked with either Norfolk & Western and/or a different road code. Known Road Codes
Unidentified Road Codes
See Also...Return to: Train Sets | Locomotives | Rolling StockPostage Stamp Trains is a Trademark of the Aurora Plastics Corporation.
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