Aging vision 'makes lemonade' for items such as duplicate car numbers.
The other day the wife and I were the lead car at the railroad crossing for about 125 cars passing....mostly modern tankers. When it had passed, my wife (she's into this hobby, too!) said, 'Well, did you see any duplicate car numbers?' () The people in the car next to us must have thought we were nuts we were both laughing so hard as we pulled away when the gate went up.
You know, for the life of me I have no idea why this is such a big deal...even to our kindred OCD souls...when reading passing railroad car numbers on a 1:1 train (No problem reading those, Bubba!) is NOT what folks typically do....at least not the wife and I. No, nowadays the passing parade has too much interesting graffiti, flat-wheel noises, guesses at the merchandise, tanker contents, etc., etc., etc. to grab attention.
So, therein lies another idea....make your cars more interesting BEYOND the stupid car numbers!! Weather them. Add graffiti. (Hey! If you're prepared to daintily rectify the car numbers so that the pickers of nit will never know you did so, why not put that artistic talent/skill to work making the cars truly interesting?!?!?)
How about a couple of PS-1 boxcars with identical numbers and connected right together. BUT one has the doors closed, has light road weathering. The other one has the doors ajar, a hobo lounging inside on the visible weathered plank floor, his satchel lying beside him, the rest of the car having a more weathered roof, rusty sides, etc. How many guests watching those passing connected cars will say 'Hey, both those cars have the same car number!?' C'mon, man....you know they're going to have their attention drawn to the other details/weathering!
Duplicate car numberitis....coming to a psych's couch near you.
Reminds me of that old picture of the famous Lionel showroom layout featuring a pair of Alco FA's pulling a long string of 6656 yellow cattle cars. Apparently it didn't bother JLC that they all had the same number! It was just eye-popping beautiful to behold in its passing, I'll bet. Same with my Santa Fe 3751 pulling a string of ATSF reefers.....with (Oh dear, oh dear!) several duplicate numbers in the mix.....who cares?....the TRAIN is simply gorgeous to behold as an entity. And someday, if I can acquire any new talents at this age, I might weather a few of them.
On the other hand....
KD