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30-607: The Pacific Harbor Line ( reporting mark PHL ) was formed in 1998 to take over the Harbor Belt Line (HBL). In 1998, the Alameda Corridor was nearing completion, allowing for a massive amount of railroad traffic from the largest harbors in the Western hemisphere: Port of Los Angeles and Port of Long Beach . The railroad has 18 route miles (29 km) with a web of 59 miles (95 km) of track. The PHL, privately owned by

60-674: A 2-digit code indicating the vehicle's register country . The registered keeper of a vehicle is now indicated by a separate Vehicle Keeper Marking (VKM), usually the name of the owning company or an abbreviation thereof, which must be registered with the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and which is unique throughout Europe and parts of Asia and Northern Africa. The VKM must be between two and five letters in length and can use any of

90-461: A hyphen. Some examples: When a vehicle is sold it will not normally be transferred to another register. The Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD. The UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number . The third and fourth digit of the number indicated

120-669: A merger in 1996, forming the new Burlington Northern & Santa Fe (BNSF), and the SP and UP would merge into the current Union Pacific in February 1998. Also in 1998, the HBL was re-organized as the Pacific Harbor Line to create a more even distribution system for shippers using the ports and the two surviving railroads (BNSF and UP). Although HBL's switching operations had been handled jointly, shippers could have problems getting their goods to or from

150-685: A predecessor of the CNW, from which the UP inherited it. Similarly, during the breakup of Conrail , the long-retired marks of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and New York Central Railroad (NYC) were temporarily brought back and applied to much of Conrail's fleet to signify which cars and locomotives were to go to CSX (all cars labeled NYC) and which to Norfolk Southern (all cars labeled PRR). Some of these cars still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on

180-970: Is headquartered in Washington, D.C. , not far from the Capitol . Its information technology subsidiary, Railinc , is based in Cary, North Carolina . Railinc IT systems and information services, including the Umler system, the Interline Settlement System and Embargoes system are an integral part of the North American rail infrastructure . Railinc delivers approximately nine million messages each day over its EDI network, including transportation waybills , advance train consists, blocking requests and responses and trip plans. Its applications support railroads, equipment owners and rail industry suppliers along every link of

210-514: The American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), although some smaller railroads and railroad holding companies are also members of the AAR. The AAR also has two associate programs, and most associates are suppliers to the railroad industry. AAR was created October 12, 1934, by the merger of five industry-related groups: William George Besler was its first President. The AAR

240-525: The Anacostia Rail Holdings Company , operates on tracks and facilities owned by the ports. The PHL is a neutral switching railroad that serves shippers at this large port complex. PHL handles 40,000 carloads of freight a year, excluding intermodal traffic. The Alameda Corridor provides rail service to the port complex through the BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad . The original Harbor Belt Line

270-717: The Transportation Technology Center , a 52-square-mile (130 km ) facility 21 miles (34 km) northeast of Pueblo, Colorado , owned by the United States Department of Transportation . The facility is under a care, custody and control contract with the Federal Railroad Administration . TTCI has an array of specialized testing facilities and tracks. The site enables testing of freight and passenger rolling stock , vehicle and track components, and safety devices. Where appropriate,

300-484: The supply chain . The company maintains the only industry-accepted version of the North American railroad industry's official code tables. Beginning as an information technology department within the Association of American Railroads (AAR), the company was established as a wholly owned, for-profit subsidiary of the AAR in 1999. Another subsidiary, the Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI), operates and maintains

330-504: The 26 letters of the Latin alphabet . Diacritical marks may also be used, but they are ignored in data processing (for example, Ö is treated as though it is O ). The VKM is preceded by the code for the country (according to the alphabetical coding system described in Appendix 4 to the 1949 convention and Article 45(4) of the 1968 convention on road traffic), where the vehicle is registered and

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360-400: The AAR represents its members' interests to the public at large and to Congress and government regulators in particular. The AAR works to improve the efficiency, safety and service of the railroad industry, such as through its responsibility for the industry's interchange rules and equipment specifications, e.g. for locomotive multiple unit control . One of the AAR's duties is to oversee

390-636: The Harbor Belt Line filed a dispute with the National Railroad Adjustment Board arguing that the employees of the Pacific Fruit Express were performing work on the line which was designated as word for the employees of the Harbor Belt Line. The railroad also operated a joint freight agency for handling smaller station shipments. PE merged into SP in 1965, leaving three railroads to operate the HBL. The ATSF would also be part of

420-590: The Metrolink system—even though it is operated by Amtrak. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation , which is an operating railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. Private (non-common carrier) freight car owners in Mexico were issued, up until around 1990, reporting marks ending in two X's, possibly to signify that their cars followed different regulations (such as bans on friction bearing trucks) than their American counterparts and so their viability for interchange service

450-657: The VKM BLS. Example for an "Einheitswagen" delivered in 1957: In the United Kingdom, prior to nationalisation, wagons owned by the major railways were marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway concerned; for example, wagons of the Great Western Railway were marked "G W"; those of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway were marked "L M S", etc. The codes were agreed between

480-531: The acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, the discontinued mark is referred to as a "fallen flag" railway. Occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas and five-bay coal hoppers. CMO originally belonged to Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway ,

510-629: The company since PHL was formed in 1998. A new five-year contract was signed and took effect in September 2020. On March 31, 2020, Eduardo Moreno attempted to crash a PHL train into the hospital ship USNS  Mercy , which was in the Port of Los Angeles to provide Los Angeles with additional hospital capacity during the COVID-19 pandemic in California , but the train stopped approximately 250 yards (230 m) from

540-448: The first letter of the reporting mark: A railway vehicle must be registered in the relevant state's National Vehicle Register (NVR), as part of which process it will be assigned a 12-digit European Vehicle Number (EVN). The EVN schema is essentially the same as that used by the earlier UIC numbering systems for tractive vehicles and wagons , except that it replaces the 2-digit vehicle owner's code (see § Europe 1964 to 2005 ) with

570-416: The home country may also be included. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board , Transport Canada , and Mexican Government. Railinc , a subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of

600-415: The mark, which consists of an alphabetic code of two to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment, along with a one- to six-digit number. This information is used to uniquely identify every such rail car or locomotive, thus allowing it to be tracked by the railroad it is traveling over, which shares the information with other railroads and customers. In multinational registries, a code indicating

630-557: The owner of a reporting mark is taken over by another company, the old mark becomes the property of the new company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad (mark UP) acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway (mark CNW) in 1995, it retained the CNW mark rather than immediately repaint all acquired equipment. Some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If

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660-405: The owner, or more precisely the keeper of the vehicle. Thus each UIC member got a two-digit owner code . With the introduction of national vehicle registers this code became a country code. Some vehicles had to be renumbered as a consequence. The Swiss company BLS Lötschbergbahn had the owner code 63. When their vehicles were registered, they got numbers with the country code 85 for Switzerland and

690-503: The port depending on where an individual railroad interchanged with the HBL. The PHL aimed to resolve these issues. Pacific Harbor Line was named the 2009 Short Line Railroad of the Year by Railway Age magazine. In July 2013, Pacific Harbor Line signed a new five-year collective agreement with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen (BLET), which has represented workers at

720-518: The railroad name. As it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code , the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. Marks ending with the letter "X" are assigned to companies or individuals who own railcars, but are not operating railroads; for example, the TTX Company (formerly Trailer Train Company) is named for its original reporting mark of TTX. In another example,

750-548: The railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways , Government of India . Association of American Railroads The Association of American Railroads ( AAR ) is an industry trade group representing primarily the major freight railroads of North America ( Canada , Mexico and the United States ). Amtrak and some regional commuter railroads are also members. Smaller freight railroads are typically represented by

780-727: The railways and registered with the Railway Clearing House . In India, wagons owned by the Indian Railways are marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway divisions concerned along with the Hindi abbreviation; for example, trains of the Western Railway zone are marked "WR" and "प रे"; those of the Central Railway zone are marked "CR" and "मध्य", etc. The codes are agreed between

810-624: The reporting mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX (whereas the usual Amtrak mark is AMTK) because the state transportation agency ( Caltrans ) owns the equipment used in these services. This may also apply to commuter rail, for example Metrolink in Southern California uses the reporting mark SCAX because the equipment is owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority —which owns

840-408: The ship. PHL was the first railroad to have its locomotive fleet composed only of Tier II and Tier III "clean diesel" locomotives. An EMD Joule Battery Electric Locomotive arrived in 2023 for testing and demonstration purposes for 2 years. 33°46′42″N 118°14′40″W  /  33.77833°N 118.24444°W  / 33.77833; -118.24444 Reporting mark In North America ,

870-635: Was formed in 1929 by a joint agreement of the city of Los Angeles and four major railroads: the Pacific Electric (PE) lines, the Southern Pacific (SP), the Santa Fe Railway (ATSF) and the Union Pacific (UP). Each railroad agreed to supply a quota of employees and equipment to provide switching services within a "unified zone" containing 117 miles (188 km) of track. In 1959 the employees of

900-564: Was impaired. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR. Companies owning trailers used in trailer-on-flatcar service are assigned marks ending with the letter "Z", and the National Motor Freight Traffic Association , which maintains the list of Standard Carrier Alpha Codes, assigns marks ending in "U" to owners of intermodal containers . The standard ISO 6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When

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