Because folks seem to confuse these two organizations quite often (recently on a couple of different threads here on RyPN), I thought I would print the difference.

Indiana Railway Museum is located in French Lick, Indiana

Indiana Transportation Museum is located in Noblesville, Indiana

The folks in French Lick operate the French Lick Scenic Railway (formerly known as the French Lick, West Baden & Southern) between French Lick and Cuzco. They also own a common carrier railroad called the Dubois County Railroad.

The folks in Noblesville operate trains out of their museum site and also operate special trains including the Fair Train in August from Fishers, Indiana to the Indiana State Fair grounds in Indianapolis.

Hope this helps a little bit in clearing up the confusion between these two organizations.

Les

Les,

I think you've muddied the waters even more. Whenever I hear of someone refer to "IRM" they always mean, the Illinois Railway Museum, located in Union, IL, which is one of the nation's premire railway museums.

Yes, I use IRyM when referring to IRM, because that clears up all confusion :)

Only if people know you're using reporting marks!

Robert -

That's one excellent way of doing it. In my case, I usually use INRM to signify the Indiana Railway Museum.

Les

Okay, so how do youse guys tell the difference between MATA, the McKinney Avenue Transit Authority, and MATA, the Memphis Area Transit Authority? Or the Oregon Electric Railway Museum and the Orange Empire Railway Museum? Or the North Carolina Transportation Museum and the National Capital Trolley Museum (couldn't figure out why the 611 was headed there until I read the thread)?

You don't rely on acronyms, and include better relevant information.

dave

This discussion points up something that all writers should be aware of. Unless it's a widely used acronym or abbreviation (such as UCLA), the name should always be spelled out at its first appearance in an article if there's any ambiguity about the subject of discussion. Here in the Los Angeles area, USC means University of Southern California, but to folks in the southeastern part of the US, it could mean University of South Carolina. Getting back to railroads, CP could be Central Pacific or Canadian Pacific. LA can mean Los Angeles or Louisiana, depending on the context.

A similar case can be made for geographical locations: There was an article in another website about construction problems at the Lancaster station. I finally figured that they meant Lancaster PA, but we have a Lancaster CA, which is served by Metrolink but not Amtrak. And there must be at least a dozen "Springfields" in the US.

Allegedly, thirty-eight, not counting North Springfields and West Springfields. Which is why the creators of "The Simpsons" chose that name.

This is standard procedure in technical writing, but it's really easy to forget to do it if one is in a hurry.

There is a web site which tries to keep track of acronyms.
http://www.acronymslist.com/

Years ago I saw an article about a letter which was mailed to someone in Fairfax, but the sender forgot to specify the state. The letter finally got to the recipient in California. The article showed a photo of the envelope. It must have gone to nearly every Fairfax in the USA, until someone wrote:

In attempt to reel this discussion back on topic, there are a whole set of abbreviations made for railroads, however I do not know if it is maintained anymore. It was by some organization such as the American Railroad Tariff Association or some such. Since railroads were the biggest industry at the time, this almost became the standard abbreviations for America. I just remember a few: jct = junction, ichg = interchange, mtn = mountain, vy = valley r = river and of course ry = railway. Maybe my ex-boss recalls a few more. Richard, are your reading? :)
O. Anderson