Does anyone know anything about trust plates? I have a heavy bronze trust plate that is 18" long and a 1/4" thick and reads " Girard Trust Corn Exchange Bank, Philadelphia, Pa. Trustee, Owner and Lessor Seaboard Airline Railroad Equipment Trust, Series L". This thing strikes me as being too substantial to have been placed on a freight car and might have been on one of the early Baldwins. Can anyone confirm this? Does the Series L mean something in particular?

-- Dave George (NPBLMAN@aol.com), October 20, 2000

Answers

Equipment Trusts are basically bond issues in which the purchased / leased equipment is the collateral. The Trust plate identifies the vehicle, lessor and lessee by which the equipment was acquired. The trusts were sequentially issued A, B, C,....Z, AA, BB, CC (in theory, at least). The SAL plates were cast (first smaller...then larger sizes with pot metal)...as were the early SCL plates...later they used stamped metal. (I have several of each , as well as some of the actual trust certificates). However, I have not personally seen the one you describe.

You can look-up the particular trust in the Annual Reports and get a general idea what equipment was part of the trust. It could have been from any type of eqipment...loco, boxcars, etc.....

Great Find....

Ted

-- Ted Strickland (tstrickland@pol.net), October 20, 2000.

I'm no expert on this, but I recall seeing a similar plate on Southern 2-8-0 630 up at Tennessee Valley RR Museum in Chattanooga, attached to the sill of the tender at about the mid-point.

-- Lamar Wadsworth (LW.Sou.Ry.steam@juno.com), October 20, 2000.