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26-724: The Quebec Central Railway ( reporting mark QCR ) was a railway in the Canadian province of Quebec , that served the Eastern Townships region south of the St. Lawrence River . Its headquarters was in Sherbrooke . It was originally incorporated in 1869 as the Sherbrooke, Eastern Townships and Kennebec Railway, and changed its name to the Quebec Central Railway in 1875. In 1894, it built

52-674: 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

78-400: A dynamic marketplace. The fleet is maintained through a network of independent repair facilities, TTX-owned Field Maintenance Operations (FMOs) located at intermodal terminals throughout North America, and TTX-owned heavy repair shops located in: TTX is privately owned by North America 's railroads and is the industry's railcar cooperative. The major railroads listed below all own shares of

104-461: 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

130-591: A line southward to Mégantic to connect to Canadian Pacific Railway 's east-west line, the International Railway of Maine . It would eventually own around 300 miles (483 km) of track. In 1912, the Canadian Pacific Railway leased the Quebec Central for 99 years but continued to operate as Quebec Central Railway, including passenger service to American cities. The Quebec Central in turn leased

156-685: 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

182-611: The Massawippi Valley Railway , a short line from Lennoxville to Newport , in 1926; this allowed passenger service from Quebec City via Sherbrooke to the United States . The company operated passenger trains on several long and short routes. Its longest route travelled from Quebec City to Sherbrooke, to then to Newport, Vermont . There, passengers could transfer to Boston and Maine trains, Alouette or Red Wing bound for Boston, Massachusetts . Branch sections from

208-643: The TTX Company (formerly Trailer Train Company) is named for its original reporting mark of TTX. In another example, 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

234-504: 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

260-558: 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 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,

286-657: 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

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312-531: 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 ,

338-506: The best available equipment at the lowest cost, and keep its members abreast of new developments. In 1991, the company changed its company name from TrailerTrain to TTX. TTX operates under pooling authority granted by the Surface Transportation Board . The flatcar pool was first approved in 1974 and then reauthorized in 1989, 1994, 2004, and most recently on October 1, 2014, for a 15-year term. In late 2023, TTX announced it

364-547: The company went out of business in 2006 once more ending railway traffic on the line. The remaining portions of the line currently belong to the Ministère des Transports du Québec . Reporting mark In North America , 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

390-448: 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

416-638: The latter served passengers bound for Portland, Maine . The Boston & Maine and the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad operated the Connecticut Yankee from New York City's Grand Central Terminal , up Connecticut River Valley, to Newport and along Quebec Central territory to Sherbrooke and Montreal. Passenger service ended in April 1967, and freight service ended in November 1994. The Massawippi line's track

442-557: 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

468-405: 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

494-406: The railroad it is traveling over, which shares the information with other railroads and customers. In multinational registries, a code indicating 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

520-475: The railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways , Government of India . TTX Company TTX Company (formerly TrailerTrain ) is a provider of railcars and related freight car management services to the North American rail industry. TTX's pool of railcars—over 168,000 cars and intermodal well cars —supports shippers in several industries where flatcars , boxcars and gondolas are required. TTX

546-727: 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

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572-794: The reporting mark SCAX because the equipment is owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority —which owns 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

598-586: Was entirely removed in 1992. The Quebec Central was abandoned on December 23, 1994. However, because the CPR only owned 10% of the Quebec Central's stock, it could not tear up the track and dispose of the right-of-way. In December 1999, a local resident who owned a trucking company (Express Marco Incorporated) bought the railway from the CPR and revived it, with trains running starting in June 2000. The railway operated tourist excursions in addition to regular freight service. However,

624-404: Was founded as TrailerTrain in 1955 by Norfolk & Western Railway , Pennsylvania Railroad , and Rail-Trailer Corporation. Pennsylvania Railroad employees—6,000 in total—entered possible names in a drawing for the new company, and the name "Trailer Train" won. TrailerTrain's original goals were to standardize TOFC railcar practices, foster the growth of transportation, provide its members with

650-564: 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

676-586: Was relocating its headquarters and 150 employees from Chicago to Charlotte, North Carolina in Spring 2024. TTX's railcar fleet consists of flatcars, autoracks , boxcars and gondolas. Half of the fleet is dedicated to flatcars and intermodal wells , with a quarter dedicated to auto racks for hauling finished vehicles. The remaining quarter of the pool includes boxcars, gondolas, and specialized flatcars to carry various general merchandise commodities. TTX provides standardized car types and re-purposes idle assets to serve

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