Looks like UP RR is now using the CMO reporting marks on grain hopper cars along with the UP logo. Been doing it a couple years from the weathering on some of the cars. Just noticed it on my train trip home on the Texas Eagle.
Also looks like UP Global Four Intermodal Facility (Chicago suburbs) has a wye and lead tracks onto the Chicago to St. Louis high speed line that Amtrak uses.
CMO, CGW & MSL are used for several reasons. Long term leases from equipment dealers are one of of the reasons.
Modeling BNSF and Milwaukee Road in SW Wisconsin
I haven't seen CGW or MStL used on anything yet (looking forward to it!). The CMO cars are all pretty new, but some of them have already been relettered and leased elsewhere. There are--or were--also some coal gons and hoppers with CMO reorting marks...and even sme articulated auto racks, unless they got rid of them recently. Another ex-CNW reporting mark that they use for leased equipment is FDDM, on some center-beam flat cars. What may be most surprising is UP's use of CNW reporting marks on some coil gons and coal gons that didn't have CNW in their ancestry.
UP's biggest use of a previous reporting mark for leased cars is CHTT, on a variety of car types. CTRN may still appear on coal cars, gons, and covered hoppers that SP had leased once...that mark is now assigned to UP as well.I'm not sure about these marks denoting a lease, but I've also seen SI on UP's ballast cars. And, of course reporting marks ARMN, used on virtually all of UP's mechanical refrigerator cars, is an old MP reporting mark for reefers formerly owned by American Refrigerator Transit Company.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
I seem to recall seeing CMO showing up on UP covered hoppers several years ago.
"No soup for you!" - Yev Kassem (from Seinfeld)
Time flies! It was 2004 when this incarnation of CMO cars first showed up--onn series of rebuilt aggregate gondolas, some coal gons (they changed the rporting marks from CTRN, mid-series), and the first series of new covered hoppers (10000-10649).
CShaveRR Time flies! It was 2004 when this incarnation of CMO cars first showed up--onn series of rebuilt aggregate gondolas, some coal gons (they changed the rporting marks from CTRN, mid-series), and the first series of new covered hoppers (10000-10649).
I had to scratch my head when I first saw the CMO reporting mark. Then I did some digging and found out it was a CNW property. From what I understand CMO didn't last long as an independent road. The line was incorporated in 1880. CNW gained control in 1882 with complete merger by 1957.
The Omaha Road. If I ever win the billion dollar drawing of Powerball, I just may have to hire some professionals to build one of these:
https://www.railarchive.net/randomsteam/cstpmo602.htm
UP has had cars with CMO reporting marks for at least a decade.
I was visiting the ARI plant in Paragould, AR at least ten years ago when we were having cars built there. The plant was also building covered hoppers for UP and the finished cars parked in the yard all carried CMO reporting marks.
CW
Until 1957 the Omaha (Chicago, St.Paul, Minneapolis & Omaha Ry.) was in many ways a separate railroad within the CNW System. The Omaha Road's HQ was in Minneapolis, while of course the C&NW HQ was in Chicago. Interestingly enough, the Omaha ran it's trains right-handed on double track, while CNW was famously left-handed.
An interesting item at the Twin City Model Railroad Museum / O scale club is an O scale O scale heavyweight "400" train. According the story I was told by one of the older members, the CNW had a custom modeller built two sets of the train, one to display in Chicago and one at the CMO HQ in Minneapolis. However, the president of the Omaha didn't like the train having a CNW Pacific engine, so had a custom builder (not sure if the same one or a different one) build a model of one of the Omaha's 'largest ever' Pacifics as shown in kgbw49's link.
Here is a great site with more pictures of the biggest Pacifics ever:
https://www.cnwhs.org/imggallery/displayimage.php?album=5&pid=3213#top_display_media
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