RAILROAD REPORTING MARKS - PAST & PRESENT

Approximately 11,700 Reporting Marks and Abbreviations for North American Railroads

Originally compiled by Jesse Koski.
Subsequent revisions by Ken Humphreys.

P&WRR expresses appreciation to Bruce Andrews for providing invaluable aid in helping us to keep this listing current.

If you have any comments, corrections or additions, please e-mail the P&WRR Webmaster.

Railroad equipment marks updated through April 1, 2010

Many container and trailer marks added August 2010. Note: The listing of container and trailer marks is complete only through May 1983. Publication of the
Official Intermodal Equipment Register was discontinued after March 2000 and P&WRR does not have a source for current information.
PWRR would welcome information on any container marks which are not included in these lists.

This file contains AAR assigned reporting marks that have been compiled from several sources. A limited number of common railroad abbreviations are also included. The list includes all active AAR reporting marks as of April 1, 2010 plus many historical marks which are no longer in use.

* (Asterisk) or + (plus) denotes duplicated or reassigned reporting marks among the various sources we have come across over the years. This is often due to the fact that the reporting mark had been retired long ago and reassigned, or the company was sold, bought out, merged and/or changed names. Some marks are also registered to equipment leasing companies which have leased the equipment to more than one customer, each of which used the mark. In some cases a mark may be shown as the mark of the leasing company and also as the mark of the lessee company. If both the lessee company and the equipment leasing company are known, both names appear after the mark and are separated by a /.  Many of the duplicated reporting marks are also due to the many railroad mergers and purchases over the years. Since this is a compilation of many reporting marks lists, we have made no attempt to track down the history of the many companies in this list. In most cases, but not all, duplicated marks are listed with the oldest mark first. If the current holder of a duplicated or reassigned mark is known, the entry is preceded by +.

In the absence of AAR assigned reporting marks, the AAR uniform Alpha code was used. A limited number of commonly used abbreviations for railroad names and terms is also included in this listing. Examples are MOW (maintenance of way) and UNK (railroad unknown).

Reporting marks, along with the car serial number, are used by shippers and railroads to identify specific pieces of rolling stock. All organizations with cars in interchange service are assigned reporting marks by the AAR. Some reporting marks may still be registered even though the organizations no longer have cars in interchange service or may still be awaiting delivery of ordered cars.

The uniform ALPHA code is assigned by the AAR to all organizations that may be involved in handling rail equipment. The ALPHA code usually, but NOT always, is the same as the reporting mark and, in the case of an organization that has no current or planned interchange equipment, is NOT to be considered as a reporting mark until so assigned. The ALPHA code is used by shippers and railroads to identify car-handling organizations for purpose of routing, billing, division of charges, etc.

PLEASE NOTE that for historical research purposes this list contains references to many companies that are known to no longer be in existence.

NOTE ALSO that reporting mark changes and additions occur frequently. Company names also change due to mergers and other reasons. If any errors, changes or omissions are noted in these listings, please bring them to the attention of the P&WRR Webmaster so that we may keep these listings as current and comprehensive as possible.

BE AWARE that marks which appear on containers are a different classification system for containers only. This site does not attempt to list all container marks due to lack of a comprehensive listing of these marks. Official Intermodal Equipment Register listed these marks in the past but is no longer in print.

ALPHABETICAL LISTING

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I

J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

U

V

W

X

Y

Z

EXPLANATION OF LISTINGS

ROAD MARK	(OWNER OR LESSEE/LESSOR	[FALLEN FLAG OR PREDECESSOR COMPANY]
SPS	(BN)	[SPOKANE, PORTLAND & SEATTLE]

REPORTING MARK SUFFIXES ( 4-LETTER CODES)

X	PRIVATE CAR OWNERS
U	CONTAINERS
Z	TRAILERS

 

Return to Piedmont and Western Home Page
©1996-2010 Piedmont and Western Railroad Club