here’s one for you trivia fans. years ago i was thumbing through a railway equipment register and came across an outfit with the unlikely name of head on collision line. they owned a few tank cars and i think the reporting marks were hocx. anyone know anything about this???
grizlump
Well, the Head-On Collision line has reporting marks of HOCX. They are listed in the April 1986 Official Railway Equipment Register. At that time they owned, or at least admitted to, 56 tank cars. As best as I can figure from the Register, they were (are) based in Chicago. Oh, and that is the name of their company as listed in the Register.
An X suffix on a reporting mark usually indicates that the car’s owner is not a line-haul railroad. HOC could be a car leaser, or belong to a company that registered their in-plant railroad for rate-sharing purposes.
What commodity were those tank cars fitted to carry? That info would probably make it easier to figure out exactly what was going on.
Obviously, someone had a macabre sense of humor…
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
Typing HOCX into the search box shows there was a discussion about the Head-On Collision line several years ago.
A friend of mine (since deceased) who spent many years working in the oil refining industry told me that the Head-On line was started by Hunt Oil Company interests and they picked that name to use the HOC initials as the reporting mark.
I have seen somewhere (picture? prototype car?) a logo with two steam engines pilot to pilot. The only HOCX car I have a photo of was taken in Salem NJ in 1975 and does not have a logo. As I type this it seems to me somebody offered HOCX decal sets many years ago.
Edit: The car at Salem was HOCX 809. The tank was green with yellow lettering for AMERICAN MAIZE - PRODUCTS CO. Looks like it was equipped with steam coils. No lettering for Head-On except for the reporting mark.
I thought the X stood for a private owner. Is there a way to see what a tank car is fitted to carry by looking at a car? Or rather, is there some kind of reporting mark or symbol that is painted on tank cars to represent the type of stuff inside it? I ask because the processing plant by gets a looooooooooooooooot off tank cars. There’s usually half a dozen tank cars in the fiddle yard behind the apartment and another probably dozen tank cars sitting in the business own small rail yard, right next to about another dozen or so 4740 and 4750 covered hoppers, usually with another half dozen to full dozen load of covered hoppers sitting in the fiddle yard behind the apartment. They also get box cars but there’s never many of them sitting there. I need to get a pick of that spot, it just simply can’t be explained. The lumber/construction supply places and the cement/concrete place get the cars spotted right away, they’re never any center beam flats of ACF 2 bay’s sitting in the fiddle. The cement/concrete place so many dang ACF’s sitting on it’s 3 track storage area that you can’t tell which are loaded and which are empty. I have tried, believe me, but unless I go up, knock on the office door and ask who ever answers just what exactly is the name of the place and what exactly are they making here (concrete? or cement distributor?) I will not find out. As for the tank cars, well after looking a little into what goods are shipped by boat out of the harbor and looking a little into the companies business I don’t think I want to
loads or empties? with hoppers just knock on the side of the car with your knuckles or better yet throw a rock at it and see if it sounds hollow. everything else, look at the truck springs. loaded cars will have them compressed more than empties.
grizlump
Some tank cars have the conmodity lettered on them; a lot don’t.
If it’s carrying a hazardous commodity you can tell what’s in in by the HazMat placards.
http://environmentalchemistry.com/yogi/hazmat/placards/
The April 1986 Equipment Register has a note that states to “report movements and mileage, send bills for repairs to cars and makeremittances by check to Head On Collision Line, owner (non-shipper), 1791 Howard Street, Chicago”. Maybe one of the Chicago forum members can do a drive-by and see what is on 1791 Howard. (hmmmmm, why does that address sound familiar from the Blues Brothers? is that where the White Sox play?)
So far as the cars go, the majority are AAR T103, with a few T102 and T106. The capacities listed are 110,000 pounds for the T103; 110,000 for the T102; and up to 199,000 for the T106. If I’m interpreting the Register correctly, the 10 in the car type means that the car is Major Class 10, which is a general service car-carbon steel tank. The third numeric indicates the approximate gallon capacity: T102 - 8000-9000 gallons; T103 10,000-11,000 gallons; and T106 - 22,000-24,000 gallons. Still doesn’t tell us what the cars hauled, but we can probably start by eliminating pickles (or not).
The “X” means the car is involved in a lease arrangement. Usually the reporting marks are for the railroad or company that the car is being leased to. For an example from years back, reefers leased to the Burlington Refrigerator Express subsidiary of the CB&Q carried reporting marks BREX. Cars leased to Fruit Growers Express were FGEX. It can be confusing as it’s sometimes not always clear who is leasing to whom. Seems to me it happened a time or two that a company would buy a couple of reefers and lease it to a company who then leased it back to the first company!!
You’re thinking of 1060 West Addison - Wrigley Field. [swg]
In your example yes - but not necessarily. In the example above, the cars were operated by Burlington Refridgerator Express and Fruit Grower’s Express - two examples of non-railroad owners/operators/shippers.
But some shippers own their own cars and they have their own reporting marks that always end in “x”. They could be leased from a third party, or they could be owned outright by the shipper.
It’s not about who actually owns the cars - many railroad marked cars (and locomotves) are in fact owned by banks or trusts and provided on a long-term lease basis - it’s who actually operates them. I’ve seen for example, CP centrebeam flatcars that have lettering indicating that they are leased from CGTX, but they have regular CP reporting marks.
I believe that the X means that the car belongs to a private owner. The fact that some of these cars may be leased to others is, I believe, not relevant. For example General Electric Railcar Services has a bunch of different reporting marks, including ABTX, ALWX, BCFX, CFPX, NADX, NAHX, etc. These cars are probably all owned by GE Railcar and are leased to others.
On the other hand, General Electric owns a bunch of other cars with reporting marks GEX. The majority of these are heavy duty flatcars for hauling transformers and power generation equipment. GE uses these cars themselves and does not lease them to others. Let the competitors buy their own heavy duty flats!
i think that is where the howard st “L” station is located. the building has been converted into condos. one is now for sale at $240,000.
anyway, i sent an email to Hunt Oil Co. public affairs dept and asked about their tank car fleet. maybe they will shed some light on the HOCX fleet.
grizlump
GE Railcar Services owns a ton of different reporting marks. Some are historical (eg. PLCX, PLWX, PTLX, TLDX, etc. were inherited from Pullman Leasing Co, NAHX, NATX, NADX, etc. were inherited from North American Car Co., USEX, USLX used to be US Railway Equipment, and so on) and a number of marks are assigned to particular lesees (eg. PTEX cars are leased to CanPotex, JWAX cars were leased to Johnson Wax, CFPX was for Canadian Forest Products, etc. (all of these three actually used to belong to North American as well)) Similar arrangements happen with other leasing companies for large fleets of cars leased to single shippers. For example, Procor has or had MPTX (Mountain Pine Lumber), FFIX (Finlay Forest Industries), AGCX (Alberta Gas Chemicals) marks.
GE also owns a number of shortlines, and there is a large pool of 50’ boxcars running around in regular railroad reporting marks that are actually owned by GE, but are marked for various shortlines they own.
