Hey folks, I can’t seem to find a class for articulated well cars, auto racks and roadrailers. The list published by Model Railroader doesn’t seem to describe those units, but maybe I reading them wrong, HELP? Thanks in advance…Ed Blenner
Articulated well cars (as well as other articulated intermodal cars) are AAR Mechanical Designation FCA. Single-well cars are FC.
Articulated auto racks are Mechanical Designation FA, just like their non-articulated counterparts.
Roadrailers? Take 'em off those bogies and they aren’t even railroad cars. As far as I know, they don’t have a designation.
(Are you a junk-food junkie by night? If you don’t remember that song, forget that I said anything!)
Carl - can you put that into English for me? Not a clue what you are talking about, but sounds interesting.
Jen
I’ll try, kiddo!
There has been a system of Mechanical Designations for freight cars used for nearly 100 years. For most of its history, it’s been governed by the Association of American Railroads (AAR); prior to that it was the Master Car Builders’ Association (MCB)…slightly before my time.
In this system, each basic freight car type is designated with a letter. Variations of these cars are covered with one or two other letters in most cases. Here are the basic car types you’ll see nowadays (others are now obsolete):
X - Box car
R - Refrigerator car
T - Tank car (all tank cars just carry the “T” designation now)
G - Gondola car
H - Hopper car
F - Flat car
L - various special car types.
Beyond those letters, you need a source like the Official Railway Equipment Register to provide the current designations (they don’t change often, at least not drastically). Or, try this web site:
http://members.rogers.com/iancranstone2001/aartype.html
Now, we were talking about flat cars. A normal flat car (unequipped) is an FM. If it’s modified to carry a specific commodity, it’s an FMS. If it’s equipped with an auto rack, it’s an FA. An FB has bulkheads, and an FBC is a Center-Beam car, of the type now commonly used for lumber. An intermodal flat car, for trailers or containers, is designated FC; if it’s articulated it’s designated FCA.
Here are a couple more that you’d probably see a lot of, based on what you’ve written here before:
GT or GTS: A high-sided gondola usually used for coal transportation.
HT: A plain hopper car, with three or four bays beneath (two bays is HM).
HTS: Generally refers to the quick-dumping coal hoppers, but could be for any hopper designed to carry a specific commodity…woodchip hoppers, for example, are also HTS.
LO: covered hoppers.
GB: your standard gondola.
XM: a standard box car, no special interior equipment.
N
I am confused now. and all this time i thought i had a railhighway train if i had racks and artics. geez i need to go back to conductor school and learn this stuff. Not!!!
Have railroads set up this system for inventory purposes? Or do shippers use it when ordering cars from a railroad? I thought a boxcar was a boxcar except some were bigger than others.
TIM A
Now I’m confused!
I’m not sure why it was originally set up…this was back around 1910, a considerably different era. It was probably instituted so that a railroad ordering a car from another railroad was assured of getting the right type of car, rather than something that was totally useless.
I suspect that experienced shippers know what types of cars they need, and first-time shippers (are there any of these any more?) would probably be given recommendations by the railroad.
However, I can assure you that “a boxcar is a boxcar” definitely wouldn’t cut it:
XM: A plain box car
XL: A box car equipped with interior load-restraining devices
XP: A box car equipped to transport a specific commodity (and generally unsuited for other commodities).
XMI, XLI, XPI: Same as above, only insulated.
LC: A box car with roof hatches (generally used for bulk products like clay).
LU: An all-door box car (very rare nowadays).
As I said in my earlier post, the Car Type Codes will further break these down into length, size and type of door, etc.
You think you’re confused - I just wanted something that is easy to remember - a basic code list
There is a AAR “Classification, Designation and Designation Lettering of Cars” which Is 2-3 letter code for the general type of car.
There are also AAR Mechanical designations which are a letter and 3 numbers.
There are UMLER (Universal Machine Language Equipment Register) designations.
There are railroad specific equipment codes.
Go to an Official Railway Equipment Register and it has it in the back.
Dave H.
[sigh]The letter designations (usually two or three letters, but sometimes only one, and sometimes four) are AAR Mechanical Designations.
The letter with three numbers are AAR Car Type Codes. They can be used to break down the cars of a given designation by size, type of door (or floor), or other various construction features.
UMLER has no codes of its own; it’s just responsible for maintaining the information on freight cars, and uses the same codes that AAR does.
Some railroads use their own classifications for cars. It can be in the form of stencilling on the cars themselves (NS, UP, ATSF) or something that appears on the diagram sheets and in-house references only (Chessie had these), or a “car-kind” code that can sometimes provide as much or more information than a Mechanical Designation (UP does this, too).
If you really want to get confused consider that the car kind shown on consists and switch lists varies from railroad to railroad. UP has one of the cost confusing.
Shippers typically order cars in plain language “50 foot plain box” for example. If railroad has simple code, more sophisticated may use it, but most do not. Shippers have advantage of only using one or two car types in most cases, which helps.
Mac
Just to keep things confusing, the AAR Mechanical Designation also applies to passenger cars with several classifications.
P - Passenger-carrying car
B - Baggage and express
M - Mail (usually RPO)
D - Diner
There are probably several other classifications.
The UP’s isn’t that confusing if you use it all the time.
Dave H.
what AAR designation is an ORO car
ORO?
An Ore car is generally of AAR Mechanical Designation HMA (something about two hoppers arranged longitudinally).
(If you meant something different, please elaborate!)
I have some logging (cars) well really they are just trucks and the logs make up the car. what aar designation do I give them? thanks laverne
Those are not allowed on the national railroad network, and therefor they do not have an AAR Classification. They can only be used on a private logging railroad.
The AAR Mechanical designations are still out there…but you’ll rarely see on a train profile or waybill. The AAR alpha-numeric Car Type designators identify the cars on profiles and waybills. In addition, these are the identifiers I use to assign cars to customers.
Under this system…
Autoracks: Vxxx (for Vehicle)
Well cars: Sxxx (for Stack)
Standard TOFC flat: Pxxx (for Piggy Back)
Low profile TOFC flat: Qxxx
Container: Uxxx
Trailer: Zxx (this would be RoadRailers)
Standard Cars:
A: Box car equipped with cushion draft gear, load restraints, etc
B: Plain Jane box car
C: Covered Hopper
D: Locomotive
E: Gondola equipped with load restraints, covers, coil cars, etc.
F: Flat Car
G: Plain Jane gondola
H: Plain Jane open hopper
J: High side gondola (ie Bethgon)
K: Specially equipped open hopper
L: special car
M: company car
R: Refrigerated car
T: Tank car
Nick
Also commonly known as ‘disconnects’.