It’s my understanding that the older, multicolored, identification “bar codes” (I don’t know their proper name) on the sides of railroad cars were replaced by the small, rectangular, plastic boxes seen on today’s cars. I’m curious as to how these work - what’s inside them, and how are they programmed and read for their data? Perhaps, though, this question isn’t appropriate in a railway preservation sense. If so, I do apologize.

The new tags are magnetically encoded and can be read by electronic trackside scanners tied into computers with the appropriate tracking systems. The advantage is that unlike the older scanners, they are not dependent on optical systems. The primary drawback of the older scanners was that no one realized that the optical scanner tags would be rendered useless by the layers of filth that railcars tend to accumulate.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
envlink@voyageronline.net

I should have mentioned that the data for the car is stored in a microchip that is embedded in the identifier tag. Information such as waybills for the car can be updated by computer for tracking and traffic management purposes. The only problem that has come up is the occasional loss of information due to high intensity electromagnetic fields, specifically air traffic control radar antennaes that operate at very high power settings.

Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum
envlink@voyageronline.net

I am sure there are other companies, but check out www.softrail.com then click on AEI RF Identification.
John Linda


jcbml@texasinternet.com

Thanks to Alan and John for the information - exactly what I needed!

Dick