burton@fortune.UUCP (02/24/84)
#R:ihuxq:-70400:fortune:8900002:000:1472
fortune!burton Feb 24 11:10:00 1984
The letters are the "road name" and all these names and other info about
the car design, clearances, weight, etc., are listed in a publication
called the "Official Equipment Register" or some such. It's published by
the company that also does the Official Guides (they were so much fun to
read once-upon-a-time), and the company will even supply you with a tape
of their database.
The book costs about $20, so it's fun to buy one every few years, since the
fleet turns over every 15 years or so.
Now, for a company that is *not* a railroad, but owns cars, the call letters
always end in "X". The letters are quite arbitrary in some cases, and there
are more of these private fleets that you could imagine. Broadly speaking,
these private fleets are shipper-owned cars (say Shell Oil) or leasing-company
owned cars, such as North American Transportation, GATX, TTX, etc. Also, the
national box-car pool, Railbox, which uses the marks RBOX.
If there is interest, I'll be pleased to post more info.
Also, and I guess that this is an off-the-way idea for all the netland
railroaders, maybe, maybe we could all chip in, get the tape, and (with
permission) download or otherwise re-distribute the info. (Wouldn't that
be a gas on your home computer that runs DBASE>)
Philip Burton 101 Twin Dolphin Drive
Fortune Systems Redwood City, CA 94065 (415) 595-8444 x 526
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{allegra decvax!decwrl!amd70 cbosgd harpo hpda ihnp4 sri-unix}!fortune!burton