It kinda makes sense, their equipment isn’t owned by a for-profit railroad and is not used for interchange purposes. It could be too that their equipment is technically owned by some government agency and leased to SEPTA.
I think the “X” goes for railroads run by museums and non-profits; the reporting marks used by the Minnesota Transportation Museum’s equipment is “MNTX”. I’ve noticed that the restored engines and passenger cars used on their Osceola and St.Croix Valley RR excursion train equipment, or for shoret rides around their Jackson St. Roundhouse, will have a small MNTX with the car no. stencilled on them somewhere, even though the engine or car has otherwise been restored to SOO, GN, Rock Island etc. livery.
“The museum’s reporting marks (MNTX) were applied when this car moved from a secure military facility to the Jackson Street Roundhouse in 2002. The load is the frame and trucks of GN water tender X3232, along with AAR type-E freight car drawbars, draft gear, and AB brake parts off some scrapped United Defense flat cars.”
MBTX? Huh. I guess I never realized that since I’ve only seen MofW equipment from a moving train, and like many railroads (UP, BNSF, etc), doesn’t display reporting marks on locomotives and coaches, just the number.
Since they are not registered as common carriers, they CANNOT use a reporting mark ending in anything other an X.
So Amtrak and NJT are registered as common carriers… That explains why they allow freight railroads to operate on their lines (NEC for Amtrak, the only track they own except for short disconnected stretches in some locations across the country). By law, common carrier railroads are required to provide service to anyone along their lines who wants it. So Amtrak is letting/contracting CSX, P&W, NS, and a few other freight railroads to operate local freight along the NEC. I don’t know for sure, but I would guess that there’s a similar situation along NJT lines.
EDIT: Not just museums, Stix. Any company, private owner, or organization must use a reporting mark ending in X. Only common carrier railroads are allowed to use reporting marks ending in anything else. That’s why CSX uses a CSXT reporting marks, because “X” marks are reserved for non-railroads. Technically, SEPTA, MBTA, and all others ending in “X” aren’t railroads.
Don’t quote me on this, but from what I’ve seen, I think that if the railroad’s name is printed on the locomotive or rolling stock, then it does not need to display reporting marks. For example, NJT equipment does not have “NJTR” stenciled on the equipment. But say, a locomotive that is still in Burlington Northern paint needs to have BNSF reporting marks steciled on.
For those who are confused on what a common carrier is, it is a railroad who carries BOTH freigh and passengers. An example would be the Cape May Seashore Lines, reporting marks CMSL.
However, even railroads who carry only freight or only passengers, can be registered as “common carriers.” Although Amtrak and NJT are passenger only railroads, they are registerd as “common carriers.” Even if a railroad is technically NOT a “common carrier,” they can still be registered as one.
It has nothing to do with trackage rights.
So reporting marks ending in X are private, non-railroad companies (such as TTX) or railroads who are NOT registered with the AAR as common carriers (like SEPTA, which IS a railroad, but is not a common carrier).
Joe, unfortunately you are adding further confusion. Here are two definitions consistent with what I always have believed a common carrier was.
"A common carrier is a business that transports people, goods, or services and offers its services to the general public under license or authority provided by a regulatory body. A common carrier holds itself out to provide service to the general public without discrimination for the “public convenience and necessity”. A common carrier must further demonstrate to the regulator that it is “fit, willing and able” to provide those services for which it is granted authority. Common carriers typically transport persons or goods according to defined and published routes, time schedules and rate tables upon the approval of regulators. Public airlines,
Nope, it has nothing to do with the type of cargo carried. The distinction between a “common carrier” and a “private carrier” is a legal/regulatory distinction:
A common carrier is legally bound to carry all passengers or freight as long as there is enough space, the fee is paid, and no reasonable grounds to refuse to do so exist.
On the other hand, a private carrier is one who provides transportation or delivery of goods for money, just for the particular instance, and not as a regular business.
Another thing that causes variations are contract operators. One of the local railways around here is called Ontario Southland Railway. Its reporting marks are OSRX - it’s a railway contracting company, not a common carrier. They’ve leased or rented switching engines to some industries, and they operate the Guelph Junction Railway under contract to the City of Guelph (which actually owns the railway). They also own or lease a former CP line from Ingersoll, ON to Tilsonburg, ON, and there are some strong rumours of them taking over the CP line to St Thomas, ON. They also used to perform all the switching at the Petro-Can refinery in Oakville, but lost that contract to a different operator about a year ago.
Another local contractor is Cando Contracting (CCGX) which operates the shortline railways Barrie-Collingwood Railway and Orangeville-Brampton Railways in Ontario, and formerly owned the Athabasca Northern Railway (ANY) in Alberta and Central Manitoba Railway (CEMR). They also provide switching services to large industrial customers and some of their locomotives are leased to a shortline in Nova Scotia.
I thought it was the opposite: reporting marks (railroad’s code initials) on rolling stock (cabooses and locomotives excepted), printed railroad name optional.
Joe: You’re right about locomotives, cabooses, and passenger cars, but rolling stock must have the reporting marks displayed.
Also, modern common carriers in the US are not required to operate passenger services. They may be required by law to allow Amtrak to use their lines to operate passenger service, but they themselves do not need to operate passenger service.
But previous to the formation of Amtrak in May 1971, common carrier railroads were required to operate passenger service if they were “fit, willing and able” as Mark noted.
Well, no reporting marks, no interchange service. Having revenue cars which can not (ever) be used in interchange service (ie when the recipient or shipper is on another railroad) would be suboptimal for most railroads, as it would severely limit what that piece of rolling stock could be used for.
If you then take into account that everything else (like routing records, billing records and maintenance records etc) probably are indexed by reporting mark + number, then probably becomes bad business sense to not use reporting marks on rolling stock.
I suspect when Amtrak was created, part of the deal for getting the NE Corridor was an agreement to allow the freight railroads to continue to use it. Just being a common carrier doesn’t require a RR to allow another road trackage rights.
I’m aware it’s not just museums, we discussed other uses earlier in the topic. I was responding to the comments about commuter railroads using X at the end, and how non-profit museums used them too.
p.s. Being a common carrier means you carry everything, not just one commodity, like an iron ore mining company whose private line is only used to carry raw ore from the open pit mines to a processing plant. It doesn’t mean you have to offer passenger service. (Oddly enough, here in Minnesota many private logging co. railroads were technically registered as “common carriers” because the property taxes were lower on common carrier lines, since the state wanted to encourage common carriers to help businesses develop in unpopulated
Can I have my own personal reporting marks with my initials?
Well, it’s not really MINE, but there are (have been) reporting marks with my initials.
I discovered quite by accident that H. Earl Clack, a wholly owned subsidiary of Husky Oil Co. with 200 wholesale and retail petroleum outlets, owned 8 TM 8000-gallon tank cars, reporting marks KLAX. I ran across the marks in a 1954 Official Railway nEquipment Register and then tracked down information on the company in a 1955 Moody’s Industrial Manual.
I thought about my free-lance “St.Paul Route” having a refrigerator subsidiary line called “Superior Transportation International”, as the cars are leased the reporting marks would be STIX…but so far I’ve never done one, although I did get some “private road name” word decals from Champ years ago.
Happened to me to Ty. One of my name choices for a freelance was Wisconsin Northern. After stopping at the local club layout (after shopping at the LTS first of course) to my udder bewilderment there on the tracks sat a set of Alco FA-1A’s someone did as Wisconsin Northern. They chose what looked to be GN green and orange, a real nice like forest green and a burnt orange color. The symbol was a WI state sillouhette encased in a circle with some writting on it, I’m assuming the RR’s name or motto. Was pretty neat looking. It leaves me in the dust because now all I can imagine a WN loke in is that paint scheme.
Since it kind of deals with the subject, has anyone noticed their Atlas models inaccuratelty marked? I have an MILW 40’ PS1 that Atlas has marked as a 50 foot 6 inch interior length. But, if you do some backwards mathematics you find that the cubic foot capacity mark Atlas used was correct for a 40’ 6" interior length of a PS1 40’ box car. My MILW GP9TT is also by Atlas and I noticed that on the loke the side marking says 125-ERS. I can understand not having the dot in 12.5 since it’s N scale, but still a 12.5-ERS marking is pretty far off from a 17.5-ERS marking that it should be. The MILW orange is also too white. At least when compared to pics on railpictures.net. Haven’t checked the rest of my rolling stock yet, all Atlas, so I don’t now if there are any other conflicting trailors. I know one of the MILW cars I have has no car number listing on anything I’ve found of MILW rolling stock, but
Even if there was a corresponding car number, was it for the same type (flat, box, gondola, etc.)?
Even if the number corresponded to the same car type, was it close in general appearance (fish-belly versus straight-sill flat car, 50-feet versus 40-feet long, etcetera)?
Even if close in appearance, were major details correct (doors, running boards, car ends, car roof, trucks, brake wheel style, etcetera, etcetera) correct?
The odds are any off-the-shelf car is incorrect in some significant, visible way.
