Rail car information

[RosepineRR]

I'm a newcomber to this hobby and what I don't know could fill volumns.  I've noticed that all cars have numbers and letters on them which I assume are registration numbers.  Is there a publication which will tell me what exactly what they all mean?  Thanks

[ndbprr]

Yes there is. It is called the Official Railway Equipment Register ot ORER for short.  It is issued quarterly and is about the size of a big yellow pages book in thickness. It even has a yellow cover.  It has just about everything you would ever want to know about every railroad in North America.  Let's use BNSF as an example.  First it will list the offices, management and phone numbers.  next it lists every interchange point with other railroads with the location and railroad.  Next it tells you the number of locomotives they have but no detail information.  Then it lists every car by blocks of numbers telling you dimensional data and service.  It also has a complete list of the four letter reporting marks so you can determine the owner (all cars ending in X are privately owned by the way). It also lists the FRA car designations for all cars in interchange service and it has the per diem rate schedule for cars ( recievers get three days for free in most cases and then the railrod starts charging them for lack of availablity for the car).  So how do I get one of these books you ask?  Current information is vital to the railroads and outdated copies are discarded.  What you need to do is ask around at a local office if you can get one of the old ones when they come out quarterly.  Alternately they do appear on E Bay.  I used to have an IC employee who would get me ten to twelve (all he could carry) when the new ones came out that I would sell for $10.00 each.  You also subscribe for a year if you are into modern railroading.  I think it is $40.00 per year.  Lastly the NMRA sells issues from the 40's or 50's that are reprints and had a lot more railroad infoprmation since there were more of them.  they are fascinating reading if you have never seen one.

[KCSfan]

I'm a newcomber to this hobby and what I don't know could fill volumns.  I've noticed that all cars have numbers and letters on them which I assume are registration numbers.  Is there a publication which will tell me what exactly what they all mean?  Thanks

Hi Rosepine,

Welcome to the Trains Forums. The owner of every railcar is identified by up to four letters known as Reporting Marks. These are followed by numbers which are unique to, and designate, each specific car belonging to that owner.

Reporting marks that end in an "X" are found on privately owned (not owned by a railroad) cars. e.g., GATX is the reporting mark of many tank cars and designates that General American Transportation Co. is the owner of that car. Reporting marks that end in a letter other than an X are assigned to cars that are owned by railroad companies. e.g., UP is the reporting mark found on cars owned by the Union Pacific Railroad, KCS on cars owned by the Kansas City Southern Railroad, CSXT on cars of the CSX Railroad, etc.

The register of reporting marks is maintained by the Association of American Railroads (AAR) and there are a number of on-line sites (arranged alphabetically) that list each reporting mark and the company it is assigned to. Simply do a Google search on Railroad Reporting Marks to access these sites.

Mark