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51-591: The WeGo Star ( reporting mark NRTX ) (formerly the Music City Star ) is a commuter rail service which runs between Nashville and Lebanon, Tennessee . The service uses the existing track of the Nashville and Eastern Railroad . The line stops at seven stations: Riverfront (Nashville), Donelson , Hermitage , Mt. Juliet , Martha , Hamilton Springs and Lebanon . The operation covers 32 miles (51 km) of rail line. Service began on September 18, 2006. In 2023,

102-674: 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

153-628: A country (for example, 1,440 mm or 4 ft  8 + 11 ⁄ 16  in to 1,445 mm or 4 ft  8 + 7 ⁄ 8  in in France). The first tracks in Austria and in the Netherlands had other gauges ( 1,000 mm or 3 ft  3 + 3 ⁄ 8  in in Austria for the Donau Moldau line and 1,945 mm or 6 ft  4 + 9 ⁄ 16  in in

204-461: 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

255-685: 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

306-483: A situation which continued for several years, culminating with a financial shortfall of $ 1.7 million by the summer of 2008, of which the state of Tennessee covered $ 1 million in a bailout of the service. Financial difficulties continued into the next year; in June 2009, the service was nearly shut down for lack of funds until state and local authorities granted the service $ 4.4 million to continue service until 2011. During 2010,

357-505: A standard gauge of 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ), and those in Ireland to a new standard gauge of 5 ft 3 in ( 1,600 mm ). In Great Britain, Stephenson's gauge was chosen on the grounds that existing lines of this gauge were eight times longer than those of the rival 7 ft or 2,134 mm (later 7 ft  1 ⁄ 4  in or 2,140 mm ) gauge adopted principally by

408-459: A star formation, hence the original name of the system, which also alludes to the city's many country music stars . The Star is the first passenger train service of any kind for Nashville since the discontinuation of Amtrak 's Floridian in 1979. The Nashville and Eastern line , part of the former Tennessee Central Railway , had not seen passenger service for many decades prior to the Star, with

459-464: A third passenger car was added to all WeGo Star trains to accommodate increasing ridership. On May 2, 2010, the East Corridor line was closed because of damage related to the floods that hit Middle Tennessee. Flood waters pushed tracks off a concrete trestle over Sinking Creek in downtown Lebanon. This trapped Star trains at their Lebanon storage yard, causing RTA to suspend service until the trestle

510-423: A time-consuming and expensive process. The result was the adoption throughout a large part of the world of a "standard gauge" of 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ), allowing interconnectivity and interoperability. A popular legend that has circulated since at least 1937 traces the origin of the 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ) gauge even further back than

561-406: Is 32 miles (51 km) long with seven stations. There are six round trips, although two of them only go as far as Mt. Juliet . The line is mostly single-track , so this limits arrivals and departures to how long each train has to wait for the other to pass. The first "starter line" cost $ 41 million, or just under $ 1.3 million per mile, which made it the most cost-efficient commuter rail start-up in

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612-745: Is currently operated by the Ghana Railway Company Limited . Kojokrom-Sekondi Railway Line (The Kojokrom-Sekondi line is a branch line that joins the Western Railway Line at Kojokrom ) Indian nationwide rail system ( Indian Railways ) uses 1,676 mm ( 5 ft 6 in ) broad gauge. 96% of the broad gauge network is electrified. The railway tracks of Java and Sumatra use 1,067 mm ( 3 ft 6 in ). Planned and under construction high-speed railways to use 1,668 mm ( 5 ft  5 + 21 ⁄ 32  in ) to maintain interoperability with

663-480: Is defined in U.S. customary / Imperial units as exactly "four feet eight and one half inches", which is equivalent to 1,435.1   mm. As railways developed and expanded, one of the key issues was the track gauge (the distance, or width, between the inner sides of the rails) to be used. Different railways used different gauges, and where rails of different gauge met – a " gauge break " – loads had to be unloaded from one set of rail cars and reloaded onto another,

714-489: 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 the home country may also be included. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by

765-556: Is the most widely used track gauge around the world, with about 55% of the lines in the world using it. All high-speed rail lines use standard gauge except those in Russia , Finland , Uzbekistan , and some line sections in Spain . The distance between the inside edges of the rails is defined to be 1,435 mm except in the United States, Canada, and on some heritage British lines, where it

816-598: The Liverpool and Manchester Railway , authorised in 1826 and opened 30 September 1830. The extra half inch was not regarded at first as very significant, and some early trains ran on both gauges daily without compromising safety. The success of this project led to Stephenson and his son Robert being employed to engineer several other larger railway projects. Thus the 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ) gauge became widespread and dominant in Britain. Robert

867-547: 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 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

918-435: The 2020 pandemic, ridership plummeted to 77,200 with a majority of the rides being in the first quarter of the year, it fell further in 2021 to 57,500 although the 4th quarter saw immense improvement compared to the 4th quarter of 2020. 2022 saw a rebound in ridership, although not even half of pre-pandemic levels. Reporting mark In North America , the mark, which consists of an alphabetic code of two to four letters,

969-504: 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

1020-889: The Great Western Railway. It allowed the broad-gauge companies in Great Britain to continue with their tracks and expand their networks within the "Limits of Deviation" and the exceptions defined in the Act. After an intervening period of mixed-gauge operation (tracks were laid with three rails), the Great Western Railway finally completed the conversion of its network to standard gauge in 1892. In North East England, some early lines in colliery ( coal mining ) areas were 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ), while in Scotland some early lines were 4 ft 6 in ( 1,372 mm ). The British gauges converged starting from 1846 as

1071-631: The Netherlands for the Hollandsche IJzeren Spoorweg-Maatschappij ), but for interoperability reasons (the first rail service between Paris and Berlin began in 1849, first Chaix timetable) Germany adopted standard gauges, as did most other European countries. The modern method of measuring rail gauge was agreed in the first Berne rail convention of 1886. Several lines were initially built as standard gauge but were later converted to another gauge for cost or for compatibility reasons. 2,295 km (1,426 mi) Victoria built

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1122-657: 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

1173-531: 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 ,

1224-629: The advantages of equipment interchange became increasingly apparent. By the 1890s, the entire network was converted to standard gauge. The Royal Commission made no comment about small lines narrower than standard gauge (to be called "narrow gauge"), such as the Ffestiniog Railway . Thus it permitted a future multiplicity of narrow gauges in the UK. It also made no comments about future gauges in British colonies, which allowed various gauges to be adopted across

1275-476: The coal mines of County Durham . He favoured 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ) for wagonways in Northumberland and Durham , and used it on his Killingworth line. The Hetton and Springwell wagonways also used this gauge. Stephenson's Stockton and Darlington railway (S&DR) was built primarily to transport coal from mines near Shildon to the port at Stockton-on-Tees . Opening in 1825,

1326-487: The coalfields of northern England, pointing to the evidence of rutted roads marked by chariot wheels dating from the Roman Empire . Snopes categorised this legend as "false", but commented that it "is perhaps more fairly labeled as 'Partly true, but for trivial and unremarkable reasons. ' " The historical tendency to place the wheels of horse-drawn vehicles around 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) apart probably derives from

1377-525: The colonies. Parts of the United States, mainly in the Northeast, adopted the same gauge, because some early trains were purchased from Britain. The American gauges converged, as the advantages of equipment interchange became increasingly apparent. Notably, all the 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) broad gauge track in the South was converted to "almost standard" gauge 4 ft 9 in ( 1,448 mm ) over

1428-459: The course of two days beginning on 31 May 1886. See Track gauge in the United States . In continental Europe, France and Belgium adopted a 1,500 mm ( 4 ft  11 + 1 ⁄ 16  in ) gauge (measured between the midpoints of each rail's profile ) for their early railways. The gauge between the interior edges of the rails (the measurement adopted from 1844) differed slightly between countries, and even between networks within

1479-985: 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 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

1530-566: The exception of excursion trains operated by the Tennessee Central Railway Museum and the Broadway Dinner Train. The WeGo Star regional rail service is currently served by four rebuilt ex- Amtrak EMD F40PH locomotives and eight former Chicago Metra coaches, standard gauge . The coaches are bilevel rail cars with seating on both levels. Since 2022, all four F40PH locomotives have been rebuilt and repainted into

1581-448: 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

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1632-735: The first railways to the 5 ft 3 in ( 1,600 mm ) Irish broad gauge. New South Wales then built to the standard gauge, so trains had to stop on the border and passengers transferred, which was only rectified in the 1960s. Queensland still runs on a narrow gauge but there is a standard gauge line from NSW to Brisbane. NMBS/SNCB 3,619 km (2,249 mi) Brussels Metro 40 km (25 mi) Trams in Brussels 140 km (87 mi) 1,032 km (641 mi) The Toronto Transit Commission uses 4 ft  10 + 7 ⁄ 8  in ( 1,495 mm ) gauge on its streetcar and subway lines. Takoradi to Sekondi Route,

1683-429: The initial gauge of 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ) was set to accommodate the existing gauge of hundreds of horse-drawn chaldron wagons that were already in use on the wagonways in the mines. The railway used this gauge for 15 years before a change was made, debuting around 1850, to the 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ) gauge. The historic Mount Washington Cog Railway ,

1734-575: 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, 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

1785-407: The line had a ridership of 108,000. The train began operations on September 18, 2006, becoming the 18th commuter rail system in the United States, with a projected daily ridership of 1,500 passengers. The service launched with an estimated annual cost of $ 3.3 million, of which $ 1.3 million was covered by revenues. In the first month after service began, ridership failed to reach the projected goals,

1836-736: The morning and two more in the afternoon. A proposed expansion of the system to Clarksville and Ashland City utilizing the Nashville and Western Railroad right of way is projected to cost $ 525 million. The Star is considered a "starter" project to demonstrate the effectiveness of commuter rail service to the metro Nashville area. Expansion plans include as many as six more lines, terminating in Gallatin , Columbia , Murfreesboro , Dickson , Springfield , and Clarksville via Ashland City . All are planned to use existing CSX Transportation railroad lines. The planned seven lines meet in central Nashville in

1887-415: The nation. The line was previously run by the Nashville, Chattanooga and St. Louis until 1930. It reopened 76 years later. WeGo Star ridership steadily increased from 104,785 passenger trips in 2007 to 277,148 trips in 2012. In 2013, ridership decreased to 253,421 trips, but then steadily increased to 298,800 passenger trips in 2018. In 2019 ridership slightly decreased to 292,500 passenger trips. During

1938-431: The new WeGo paint scheme. 381 previously wore Amtrak's Pacific Surfliner paint scheme until late 2020. The former Pullman-Standard coaches were withdrawn from service around 2020 and were replaced with corrugated stainless steel Budd bi-level coaches, although the older cars are still used on occasion. Currently there is only one line, with six more planned to other satellite cities around Nashville . The current line

1989-591: The old 4 ft ( 1,219 mm ) plateway was relaid to 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ) so that Blenkinsop's engine could be used. Others were 4 ft 4 in ( 1,321 mm ) (in Beamish ) or 4 ft  7 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,410 mm ) (in Bigges Main (in Wallsend ), Kenton , and Coxlodge ). English railway pioneer George Stephenson spent much of his early engineering career working for

2040-557: 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

2091-405: 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

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2142-436: The rails is better, thus the minimum distance between the wheels (and, by extension, the inside faces of the rail heads ) was the important one. A standard gauge for horse railways never existed, but rough groupings were used; in the north of England none was less than 4 ft ( 1,219 mm ). Wylam colliery's system, built before 1763, was 5 ft ( 1,524 mm ), as was John Blenkinsop 's Middleton Railway ;

2193-592: The railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways , Government of India . Standard gauge A standard-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge of 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ). The standard gauge is also called Stephenson gauge (after George Stephenson ), international gauge , UIC gauge , uniform gauge , normal gauge in Europe, and SGR in East Africa. It

2244-727: 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

2295-411: The rest of the network. All other railways use 1,668 mm ( 5 ft  5 + 21 ⁄ 32  in ) ( broad gauge ) and/or 1,000 mm ( 3 ft  3 + 3 ⁄ 8  in ) metre gauge . BLS , Rigi Railways (rack railway) 449 km Several states in the United States had laws requiring road vehicles to have a consistent gauge to allow them to follow ruts in

2346-485: The term "narrow gauge" for gauges less than standard did not arise for many years, until the first such locomotive-hauled passenger railway, the Ffestiniog Railway , was built. In 1845, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland , a Royal Commission on Railway Gauges reported in favour of a standard gauge. The subsequent Gauge Act ruled that new passenger-carrying railways in Great Britain should be built to

2397-479: The width needed to fit a carthorse in between the shafts. Research, however, has been undertaken to support the hypothesis that "the origin of the standard gauge of the railway might result from an interval of wheel ruts of prehistoric ancient carriages". In addition, while road-travelling vehicles are typically measured from the outermost portions of the wheel rims, it became apparent that for vehicles travelling on rails, having main wheel flanges that fit inside

2448-426: The world's first mountain -climbing rack railway , is still in operation in the 21st century, and has used the earlier 4 ft 8 in ( 1,422 mm ) gauge since its inauguration in 1868. George Stephenson introduced the 1,435 mm ( 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ) gauge (including a belated extra 1 ⁄ 2  in (13 mm) of free movement to reduce binding on curves ) for

2499-564: 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

2550-663: Was repaired. MTA substituted chartered buses instead, picking up passengers at all stations except Martha. The line was repaired in one week. Following the Nashville MTA rebranding to WeGo Public Transit , the Music City Star was renamed the WeGo Star. The COVID-19 pandemic in Tennessee in 2020 briefly resulted in the shutdown of Star rail service, but service resumed on June 15, 2020, with eight trains each weekday — two each way in

2601-526: Was reported to have said that if he had had a second chance to choose a gauge, he would have chosen one wider than 4 ft  8 + 1 ⁄ 2  in ( 1,435 mm ). "I would take a few inches more, but a very few". During the " gauge war " with the Great Western Railway , standard gauge was called " narrow gauge ", in contrast to the Great Western's 7 ft  1 ⁄ 4  in ( 2,140 mm ) broad gauge . The modern use of

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