Private Owner reporting marks

[MeowRailroad]

Can the reporting marks that end in X be 3 or less letters including the X? All that I have seen are 4, including the X. TTX equipment is either TT(letter)X or (letter)TTX, so it would appear to not be the case. Also, how do reporting marks work for tourist railroads?

 

[norfolksouthern37]

Can the reporting marks that end in X be 3 or less letters including the X? All that I have seen are 4, including the X.

yes they can be 3 or less as long as they have the 'X'

TTX equipment is either TT(letter)X or (letter)TTX, so it would appear to not be the case.

TTX is a valid mark, and was the original reporting mark of Trailer-Train Co.

 

[MeowRailroad]

Thank you! Do they put the extra letters in TTX so they can have multiple cars of the same number? Or does it not work like that?

 

[norfolksouthern37]

usually for car type classification.

 

[whitepass]

Tourist and any railroads that do not interchange cars need no reporting marks.

 

[MeowRailroad]

Do non-interchanged cars not need reporting marks? Strasburg has a freight business and a few cars, but the passenger cars have no marks except for the name on them.

 

[SharkNose]

According to Railroad Reporting Marks, Strasburg's reporting mark is SRC.

 

[MeowRailroad]

I know, but the passenger cars don't have SRC written on them. They do have Strasburg Railroad written on them, I think.

 

[mjolnir]

MeowRailroad,

Regarding your question

Do they put the extra letters in TTX so they can have multiple cars of the same number?

I've paid some attention to this, as I had the same question years ago. I did not find any instance where the exact same sequence of digits was duplicated among different reporting marks. That is, there was not at the same time a FTTX639285 and a PTTX639285. [NB: the numbers cited in this message are for illustration purposes only, I didn't check to see if the numbers in this message were ever actually assigned.] Further, I have since seen instances where, when a car has been refitted to handle a different types of cargo, the first letter of the reporting mark was changed to reflect the new loading, so that FTTX became PTTX, or vice versa.

As to private car reporting marks of less than four letters, I found two others. The large agricultural concern from Indiana, the Andersens, has the mark "AEG", and Columbian Chemical, a subsidiary of Phelps Dogde, has the mark "CCX" assigned. There may be others, but I stopped looking after about 3 pages.

ns