ORER and Car Yearbooks

[Dough]

I just got two of these used, and boy are they fun! For those that don't know the Official Railway Equipment Register provides a listing of every railcar owned by a particular railroad. I have been searching for such a roster for NS and CSX for quite some time, and this really does the trick!

I also got two yearbooks. The Car & Locomotive Yearbook and also a MoW verson. These are great as well for identifying cars. And modelers may want to look into them because they provide up close pictures of many related parts. I think that it would be of great interest for those adding details!

I just thought that I would share, because I had asked before about car rosters and got little help.[;)]

[CShaveRR]

Who publishes the yearbooks? I'm not familiar with those.

However, I can vouch for the usefulness of the ORER, even though the inaccuracies are fun to look for and point out. I haven't bought one in over a year, because they want to sell you an annual subscription (four issues) at about 400 bucks a year, rather than a single copy. I get a lot of information from UMLER (Universal Machine Language Equipment Register...the basis for ORER information) files, available on some railroad web sites (CSX and BNSF are still available to the public, AFAIK). As a UP employee, I can access their UMLER screens at work, and a customer UMLER inquiry site at home.
There are a couple of good freight car interest sites on Yahoo, where I occasionally post some sightings that have piqued my interest.

[Anonymous]

Those things much be enormous, is it all of North America, Canada, US and Mexico?

Any internet sites with info on these yearbooks?

[DSchmitt]

Some ORER are available on CD ROM from Westerfield

http://users.multipro.com/westerfield/

[Dough]

Yeah, it took me a while to find one for a reasonable price. I finally got one used for July 2003. I'll have to look into those other sites as they sound interesting. BTW, macguy its about the size of a large phone book.

The other is "Progressive Railroading's Car & Locomotive Yearbook and Buyers' Guide" I have the 2001-2002 version. It tells about the new cars available for sale, locos for sale, and many parts in addition to some stats. I think that you should be able to find one by searching the web. I belive that it is pretty expensive new as well. If you need help finding it, then I can help.

The MoW is fun to see all of the new models of equipment as well. However, both are fun to browse and see all of the models of equipment and cars.

[CShaveRR]

Oh, those! I have a couple, after all. Not a bad alternative to a Cyclopedia, which comes out every so often and costs twice as much, at least!