Does anyone have any information or titles of books that will list the Reporting Marks on boxcars and who owns them? I watch a lot of trains go by - especially coal trains - and would
enjoy knowing what company owns the cars.
The best source for this information is “The Official Railway Equipment Register”. The best place to find these would be at railroad swap meets. I am not sure about public librarys, but you might give that a try. The register gives a lot of information about freight cars, their owners (including railroads and private companies), car types, dimention information, classifications and more.
The ORER or Equipment Register will show who is considered the “home road” for a car, but not necessarily the car owner. For example, General Electric Capital Railcar Services is the owner of most of the short line boxcars in the US, and owns a fair amount of Class I equipment as well. Freight cars are extremely long lived assets, so many railroads prefer to lease rather than own them, as the traffic may not last as long as the car!
The www.railroad.net/ homepage lets you type in car initials and gives the answer.
thanks to all for information. I am now looking up this weekend’s list of boxcars to see who is getting the coal and freight that we saw. Just what I wanted!