stimac@tymix.UUCP (Michael Stimac) (02/28/84)
More on reporting marks Many aspects of this question have been mentioned by other respondants, so I'll just try to fill in a few gaps. There are basically three classes of rolling stock owners - the railroad, the shipper, and the leasing company. Usually, of course, there is a bank or other lending institution in the background holding an equipment trust bond, thus leading to the trust plates seen on freight cars or locomotives. The owner and 'serial number' of each piece of rolling stock is conspicuously placed on all freight cars, in fact it will be placed on the normally separable parts as well, such as the trucks and underframe. This information is used for auditing and accounting purposes, as the railroads pay each other and the non-railroad owners for daily use of the cars (per diem). The reporting marks themselves are assigned by the Association of American Railroads, and consist of two to four letters and possibly &. Shippers and leasing companies all seem to have 3 or 4 letters with the last letter being X, as mentioned before. My 1953 Railway Equipment Register lists over 1400 identifiable owners of freight cars, most of whom have their own reporting marks. If a railroad car is leased from a leasing company, then it will typically be painted for the operator, but the reporting marks will indicate the actual owner. Thus, a tank car operated by Gulf Oil may be painted with the Gulf herald and colors, while the reporting marks are UTLX, for Union Tank Car Co., the owner. Private owners and leasing arose due to the economic reluctance of the early railroads to provide cars for 'unusual' needs. Thus arose great fleets of tank and refrigerator cars. Many coal companies also purchased or leased their own coal cars, such as Peabody, Berwind, Westmoreland, and so on. An interesting variation came about in the '70s as many short-line railroads got into the freight car leasing business themselves. Some of these little railroads have so many cars and so little home trackage that they would have nowhere to put all their cars if they all were returned at once.