One side say's No. 2333P New York Central. The other side say's 2334P-3. What is the 2334P-3 mean?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Left side of box, right side of box? Isn't what's inside that really counts? What is, or was inside?
According to Greenberg's guide it has two boxes, NYC F-3 AA set(P & T boxes), made in 1948 & 49. Nothing is mentioned about what the P & T letters mean.
Lee Fritz
As we all know the original non-magnetraction Lionel Santa Fe and New York Central
F3s were both numbered 2333. In 1950, magnetraction was added and the Santa Fe became 2343 and the New York Central was numbered 2344.
So, your box is either:
1. A very unusual box which was designed to hold a non-magnetraction New York Central which could well have been numbered 2334. Of course, as noted above, there was never a 2334 F-3 to go in it---or perhaps was there???
2. A printer's error.
3. A deliberate "neverwazz" creation
Ws there an F3 in the box and if so, was it a 2344 or 2333, or even better a 2334?
Lew Schneider
The 'P' designation stands for a Powered 'A' unit, and the 'T' denotes the Tender (non-powered) 'A' unit).
The 'C' designation was given to the non-powered 'B' units.
Larry
I bought a near new 2330 GG1 in the silver hall Thursday. He put it in this box with the insert for me to take it home in. The box & insert are a 10, unbelieveable.
P = Power unit
T = Trailing unit
My guess that "2334P-3" is the box's Lionel part number, because of the additional printing of "NEW YORK CENTRAL". This was Lionel's internal way to separate the Santa Fe's from the NYC's. Others have pointed out that "P" designates that the unit inside is a power unit.
Ron M
Ron M
Originally Posted by eddie g:
One side say's No. 2333P New York Central. The other side say's 2334P-3. What is the 2334P-3 mean?
2334 was the original number for the NYC F3, 2333 was for the SF. Have you ever noticed that no other SF/NYC F3 share numbers? 2343/44 2353/54. It was then decided to use 2333 for both the SF and NYC F3. See how the 33/34 would fit right into the series? One box, both engines. Part numbers for the gray truck side frames us 2334 whereas the silver are 2333. Lionel was so close to getting the 2333/34 number separated that they printed many materials prior to shipping. My opinion is that the 2334 number boards were never ordered and they had to use the 2333. No other 2334 number board has been reported so they might not have been made. You would think by now someone would report a 2334 number board in a 2333 NYC F3.
Ed,
Lionel's tan cardboard power unit boxes follow a certain convention.
One side is printed with the Lionel item number and road name. The other side with the Lionel item number, a dash, and then some other number. This is the part number of the box itself.
My 2343P is dash 10, a 736 box is dash 25, etc.
The 2333P NYC is one of the few instances (the only one?) where the two numbers on each side, 2333 and 2334 in this case, are different.
The number 2334 WAS used in the Lionel service manual to refer to the NYC F3 and for various parts, as mentioned above. It just wasn't put on the engine number boards.
Lionel used the number 2334 as part of the box's item number just as it did for gray sideframes, etc.
This also helped to avoid confusion in packing. Otherwise, both the the 2333 SF and 2333 NYC boxes would look identical from that side.
By using the 2334 in the box's part number, the boxes would not be confused when viewed from the opposite side.
By the way, the "T" designation in the non-powered A unit numbers stood for "tender", as Larry said.
Jim
