Air Slide covered hopper AAR designation

Model Railroader Prototype information for the modeler
1

I am not able to find the AAR code for an air slide covered hopper car. Does anyone know what it is?

I have checked the AAR Mechanical Designation web site.

Thanks

2

The ARR designation for a covered hopper is ‘LO’…It really makes no difference if it is a Airslide, Center Flo, Trinity, etc…

Jim

3

Jim,

Thanks for the information. I knew about the LO but thought there might be an additional code to distinguish Air Slide from all the others. How does would a company ordering a car communicate their specific needs for a specific product?

Maybe I should have added the model car I have is labeled for sugar, and is a GACX, Atlantic Sugar Refineries. I wouldn’t think other products would be hauled in it.

So how do they keep track? Captive service?

4

Cars for carrying specialized loads were stenciled with messages, such as “cement service only.” This was especially frequent on covered hoppers and tank cars…

Mark

5

An “X” at the end of reporting marks means the car is not owned by a railroad, but by a private company (and is usually involved in some sort of lease arrangement.) Your car is leased from General American car leasing co. by the sugar company it’s lettered for, and is only used by them. The sugar co. would pay the railroad to send the empty car back to them, rather than put some other product in it.

Generally cars needed for specialized service, like Airslide covered hoppers, are owned/leased by private companies so they would just be using their own cars. If a company needed the railroad to supply them with a certain type of car, they would ask the railroad to provide it when requesting the car. If it’s more than a once-in-a-long-while occurance, it usually would make more sense for the company to buy or lease their own cars.

“Captive service” is a little different…a little hard to explain, but normally it refers to a railroad-owned car that is being used over an extended period by another railroad. If the car’s in general service (i.e. not stencilled that it had to be returned to the owner RR or a particular company when empty etc.) as long as the other RR paid the per diem costs they could use the car for an extended period.

6

Specialized cars like airslides are generally leased for specific service. So the shipper would contact a car leasing service and lease whatever cars they need. Those cars would only serve that customer. So the company basically says"spot one of my cars". They load it, ship it to the consignee (reciever). When its empty the railroad returns it back to the same company that leased it. It never serves another shipper until it is leased by another company.

7

Thank you all.

8

There is also the AAR/UMLER car type code, which is a little more specific.

http://eaneubauer.ipower.com/type.pdf

9

Thanks for the link. After taking a glance it appears these are modern, 1970 - 2000. I explored a little more and found the codes I am more familiar. Actually the variety and detail is pretty comprehensive.