How many railroad museums out there have there own reporting marks?

And of those, how many are "Railroad" marks versus "Private car owner" marks that end is X?

Greg

Illinois Railway Museum has their own marks and has used them for some movements of cars coming into our site, and on occasion for the rare off site wanderings of cars. I was about to say it was IRYM but is more likely IRMX - I will have to check on this, or you can look us up on the register.

Bob Kutella

Just off the top of my head I think the Orange Empire Railway Museum uses OEMX for some of their stuff.

They do sometimes have off site excursions that take their equipment off the grounds.

So it is not just for delivery of cars.

The Western Pacific Railroad Museum at Portola used something to mark cars when they moved equipment in and out of the Oakland and Niles Canyon sites about a year or two ago.

Ted Miles

The museum's reporting marks are IRYM.

Mid-Continent Railway Museum has MCRY as their reporting marks.

Ed

The Hoosier Valley Railroad Museum is HVRV... we never could figure out why, since HVRM made more sense to us.

Roanoke Chapter NRHS has had RNRH since the early 70's

The National Railway Historical Society uses NRHX. At one time, they had assigned different number blocks for the various Chapters with rolling stock. In the mid 1980s, the Rochester Chapter had a block in the low 200s.

John Redden

The New Hope Valley Railway was assigned the code NHVX in the UMLER system, and uses it for all moves and FRA reporting.

Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Museum = BOMX

I seem to recall that a couple museums have used the reporting marks of a gracious host/neighbor short line to ship in equipment from elsewhere in the past. However, with more and more such equipment being relegated to truck or flatcar-only, the point seems to be getting moot.

Heber Valley Railroad uses HVRX in the UMLER system. Marks are used only to move equipment to Provo, Utah, where it must be transloaded onto heavy-haul trucks for the 27-mile highway trip to Heber City.

Craig Lacey

If you go to RailLinc today and apply for reporting marks they will insist that you have an X for the last character if you don't own a railroad. Thus, the Bluewater Michigan Chapter NRHS is BMCX. I assume groups like the Heber Valley could have gotten marks without an X on the end if they wanted to.

You have to have valid reporting marks to get AEI tags, and you basically have to have AEI tags today to move cars over class 1 RRs, so getting valid reporting marks is a good idea. They cost $500 for the lifetime of your organization. RailInc will re-assign marks from defunct entities if you want a mark that has been disused.

RPCA has a mark - PPCX - that RPCA members can use.

Chris Jacks.

We were issued reporting marks some time ago by the FRA, back when they cracked down on air brake inspections several years ago. We wanted "SCRM" but were told we're not a railroad and were issued "SCMX." Shortly thereafter we discovered that "SCMX" is already owned by Shell, and informed the FRA if this (why they didn't know is beyond me). We then got "SCMZ" issued to us. Why we couldn't have just gotten "SCRM" and be done with it just doesn't make sense, especially with all the stupid "big railroad" loss prevention rules we now have to follow in additon to the reasonable safety rules we were already following. I mean, if we're a railroad for "safety" reasons, why aren't we a railroad for reporting marks reasons? Ah, the joys of dealing with the gummit...

Not quite, Chris.

PPCX belongs to American Association of Private Car Owners. The Railroad Passenger Car Numbering Bureau owns RPCX.

Being issued a code by the FRA does not make it legal in UMLER; you had to be grandfathered by the AAR/Railinc or pay the fee. Some of the codes listed in the Pocket List or Railroad Officials are FRA codes and not UMLER. The official list of UMLER codes is here: http://www.railinc.com/docs/UMLER_MailList.xls

(A darn handy list, once you see how it is formatted)

Steve Zuiderveen
Owner of RPCX 2839

HRCV / Wilmington & Western uses their freight operations reporting marks:

WWRC - Wilmington & Western Railroad Corporation.