Reporting marks

It may not matter to you, but it may still be interesting, so...

In North America, any reporting mark ending in "X" indicates that the owner is not a railroad.  As far as I know, all non-railroad entities which own rolling stock must have reporting marks ending in "X".  I believe that the "Z" and perhaps "Y" have similar meanings in the trucking industry.

That means that EMPZ would have to be some sort of railroad, and not just a company which owns some rolling stock.

It's not meant as a criticism of your models, which are great.  Just a comment in case you or someone else didn't know and wanted to.

Z Suffix

Pretty sure Z is reserved for trailers, and U for containers. Under this regime, EMPZ would need to be a trailer (assuming you care about how plausible it appears). 

When railroad owned intermodal trailers were common, the reporting mark for the trailer was some form of the railroad reporting mark with a Z added.  Union Pacific UPZ, Western Pacific WPZ, Rio Grande (D&RGW) RGZ, and so on.  An example of a trailer owned by another (non-railroad) entity would be United Parcel Service UPSZ.

LIKE CARS WITH MODEL ROAD NAMES

I have tried to gather up as many personal road name cars to put on my layout as possible. They all have their own story. They also always create curiosity. I also look for decals that may have been done but not used.

An example is a car I painted for the MID SOUTH MODEL RR CLUB. Nice their was also a RR with same name and microscale  made decals.  Report ID came off of Rail Graphics general sheet for various type cars.

Wrong reporting marks

Silly me from the UK. I thought that if X was taken then Y followed and then Z (zed over here).

So if my company was owned by SNE, show the reporting mark be SNEX?

David

SNEX?

That could work.  You could drop the Z and go with EMP (I didn't check if that was used).

You could also have a subsidiary that just operated the reefers using common carrier reporting marks without the X, like SP and UP together ran Pacific Fruit Express (PFE), that eventually had SPFE and UPFE cars.  Santa Fe had reefers lettered SFRD (Santa Fe Refrigerator Despatch), bunkerless refrigerators with SFRB, and leased cars with SFLC.  Burlington (CB&Q) had cars with RBBQ and RBCS (for the Colorado and Southern subsidiary), and successor Burlington Northern used RBBN.  RB was the AAR car code for bunkerless refrigerator (most modelers call them insulated boxcars), while RP was mechanical refrigerator.  This list certainly isn't all inclusive, but should convey the general idea.

Reporting Marks

While reporting marks ending in "X" refer to a private owner.  There  were some exceptions; one being Western Fruit Express WFEX which was a private owner which was owned by the Burlington Northern Railroad.

In addition,some Fruit Growers Express  cars were painted for the FGE but carried the owners reporting marks, while others were marked FGEX.

I agree that reporting marks ending in "Z" were used for trailers.

SNEX or RBSN

Give us a clue - which should I go for?

Reporting Marks

If the refrigerator cars are owned by the SNE,then you can just use the SNE reporting marks without the "X" and you would be prototypical correct.  For operating interest, you could  also have a partner railroad, with all cars painted for your Ëastern Meat Packers, and some cars would have the SNE reporting mark and some with the other railroad reporting mark.  Many of of the refrigerator shippers were pool agreements between partner railroads.

Reporting Marks

Sounds like a result. I will lift the decals and replace them. First I have to get some new ones printed - oh well my daughter is always obliging with the use of her laser printer - grin.

Location of Reporting Marks

I find the placement of the reporting marks disconcerting. 

While I could not find a regulation (I spent about an hour searching), the location chosen is at least highly unusual.

The normal location is on the left of the centerline, usually above the capacity markings.   I don't remember ever seeing reporting marks to the right of the centerline. 

Some doorless cars (ie hoppers, gondolas, flats) may have the marks on the centerline,  but even these types usually have the marks to the left. 

Location

A few roads did locate the reporting marks to the right of the door on some cars, but normally had the capacity data right by them.  UP for one (photo credit Dave Krumenacker, click image for link to original) at http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/up/up-frt.html .  Note that the other dimensional data is on the left below the shield.

You have the advantage over me

Living in the UK and having visited the US on only about 10 occasions in the last 12 years (and some of them to New York) my opportunity to become familiar with railroad customs is rather restricted. hence I went for esthetics rather than formal. I will try and recover the situation. I will move the capacity, etc. to the right and move the reporting marks to the left. I will also replace the current EMPZ with just SNE and the number.

Thanks for all the comments. More pics when I have done.

To be more "correct" just

To be more "correct" just move the reporting marks to the left side over the CAPY.  Leave the CAPY and other data where it is..

There are thousands of photos on the FallenFlags site for reference:

http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/

...

Move nothing...

If Union Pacific did it that way, so can you...

More on Reporting Marks

First of all, the reefers look great!  Creating realistic freelanced freight car (and locomotive) paint schemes is always a challenge, but you seem to be doing quite well, especially when modeling the US from the UK!

A couple of comments on reporting marks:

1.  Reporting marks do not have to be 4 characters.  It seems to be more common today to have 4 letters in the reporting mark, but some famous examples of railroads with fewer than 4 characters are:  R - Rutland, M - Montour, BM - Boston and Maine, UP - Union Pacific, WP - Western Pacific, ACL - Atlantic Coast Line, L&N - Louisville and Nashville, PRR - Pennsylvania.  You could therefore have EMP be the reporting mark on the reefers if you want to maintain a separate image from the SNE.

2.  The letters X, U, and Z are reserved for specific uses in the last character of the reporting mark.  I don't have my copy of the Railway Equipment Register handy, but my recollection is that 'X' is reserved for private companies or leased equipment - TTX, RBOX, GONX (all part of Trailer Train Corporation), UTLX, SHPX, GATX and so forth.  These are all generally rail related and probably not common carriers.  This is one reason that CSX had to use the reporting mark CSXT (CSX Transportation?) to clarify that it was not a leasing company.  'U' is reserved for containers, and 'Z' is reserved for trailers.

3.  Placement.  The most common location for the reporting mark and car number is to the left of the centerline of the car.  There are always exceptions - such as the UP car in the picture posted elsewhere in this thread.  While rare, occasional placement at the center line of the car occurs, but mostly on cars without center doors on the sides.  Generally the car capacity data can be found under the reporting mark, but this too can vary.  There is additional car dimensional data that you could add as well - length, width, height (inside and outside for all three) volume in cubic feet, etc.

When in doubt, or if you want to look at some examples, check out some of the rail car photo sites such as RailCarPhotos.com or RailPictures.net.  There are others, too.

Keep up the good work!

AlanR