Conflicting Reporting Marks?

[Carfreak4]

Hi all,

This is a dumb question, but why would a locomotive/freight car have a different reporting mark than the owner railroad? For example, an NS boxcar might have a decal that says NS but the reporting mark in white text says "SOU", or an NS geep that has a complete NS scheme except the white reporting mark text says "PRR". Why do railroads do this? Is it to designate a locomotive/car to a certain region to serve? Thanks all.

-Carfreak4

 

[Euphod]

When the owner of a reporting mark is taken over by another company, the old mark remains the property of the new company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad (mark UP) acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway (mark CNW) in the 1990s, it retained the CNW mark rather than immediately repaint all acquired equipment.

Google, and sometimes, Wikipedia, are our friends.

 

[Carfreak4]

Google has not been my friend tonight...I would like to know what webpages you found or your search that brought you such lucrative results. Thank you, though, for answering my question.

 

[Euphod]

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&...g+marks&btnG=Google+Search&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=

 

[Carfreak4]

Wow. I feel stupid. I should have looked right under my nose! Thanks Euphod!

-Carfreak4

 

[norfolksouthern37]

normally this is because assets are managed under those reporting marks in the merged system. its a lot of corporate and managing leases and legal troubles if say NS tried to put everything under NS. this will eventually disappear as those terms and leases run out. the example you gave is an NS geep but belongs to the Pennsylvania railroad as an asset... (NS acquired all PRR assets of Conrail)

clear as mud?

 

[simulatortrain]

Sometimes the older reporting marks are used for certain purposes. BNSF uses GN reporting marks for any locos soon to be scrapped or sold. I was told (but this could be wrong) that NS uses NW marks for hoppers going for rebuilds.

 

[magickmaker]

If I remember right, the NYC and PRR you see on those cars has nothing to do with the original New York Central or Pensy RR. I don't remember what issue it was, but several years ago someone raised this question in a Trains magazine. The article went on to explain that both railroads created kind of "holding" companies to deal with the incoming rolling stock. Since CSX got most of the old New York Central mainline and trackage, their company was called "NYC". All rolling stock they picked up in the deal were painted with this reporting mark. Mind you this didn't always mean that it was NYC originally. In the case of Norfolk Southern, since they acquired most of the old PRR mainlines and trackage, (other than the north east corridor which is controlled by amtrak and operated mostly by CSX) their holding company was named "PRR" and like CSX the cars were lettered thusly. In the end, it was all done just to make a huge problem (dividing the engines and cars) much easier on the people having to do it.

 

[kws4000]

Not only that, but it also takes a long time to cycle all equipment through the RiP yards to have them fully repainted, and hold them long enough to get paperwork shuffled around and signatures stamped.

Kind of hard to do that when they could be out making money, hauling freight.

 

[HSSRAIL]

When Conrail was split up NS was designated to receive some of Conrail's equipment and CSXT was designated to receive the rest.

Conrail applied PRR to all equipment going to the NS and NYC to equipment going to CSXT. There is different equipment on Conrail engines verse NS or CSXT. NS engines don't have toilets and Conrail engines do for one thing.

Howard