# what are railroad car & loco numbers



## [email protected] (Sep 2, 2015)

I am about to purchase some sand hoppers and corn syrup tank cars. But I want to know about the rail car numbers that are on the cars. For example: on the website there are three of the same tank cars for sale (all the same price), they have the same decals and markings, except that the numbers on the cars are different (#16520, #16821, #17012...) What is the big deal with the numbers? If I am planning on purchasing 5 tank cars, should they all have the same number or should they be a mix?? What do the numbers mean? I have also seen a lot of adds in magazines selling locomotives that say something like, "One time run of these road numbers!"


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## johnfl68 (Feb 1, 2015)

In most cases, the numbers match existing actual railroad equipment.



> A reporting mark is an alphabetic code of one to four letters used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain railroad networks.
> 
> In North America the mark, which consist of an alphabetic code of one 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 they are traveling over, which shares the information with other railroads and customers.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reporting_mark

For an example ADM Corn Sweeteners HO 17,600 Trinity Corn Syrup Tank Cars:
ADMX 16520 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rspicture.aspx?id=647147
ADMX 16821 (might exist, but no picture of it online that I could quickly find)
ADMX 17012 http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/rsPicture.aspx?id=494210

Real life may not match model, as paint schemes change over the years, so same car may not always match pictures depending on what was modeled and what it looks like or may have looked like in real life.

You can put the reporting mark (ADMX 16520) into google search, and often if there is a picture available of the real thing, a rrpicturearchives.net listing will show up.

Hope this helps!


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## [email protected] (Sep 2, 2015)

*response*

well I guess I was wanting to know if it was okay to have the same numbers on most of my tank cars?


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## johnfl68 (Feb 1, 2015)

Well, usually no. Usually every car's reporting mark is unique.

But, it is your layout, and as they say, you are free to do what you want as long as you are OK with it.

If that is what you want to do, go ahead.
Just remember to have fun and enjoy the hobby!


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## MtRR75 (Nov 27, 2013)

[email protected] said:


> well I guess I was wanting to know if it was okay to have the same numbers on most of my tank cars?


If you want a whole bunch of similar tank cars, and want it to look reasonably realistic, you could get several of each number that is available, then mix them up on your layout -- no two identical numbers next to each other.


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## Old_Hobo (Feb 20, 2014)

The "real" railroads don't have duplicate car numbers, kinda like automobile license plate numbers (duplicates are not allowed)....but then, your railroad isn't the "real" railroad, unless you want to emulate a "real" railroad.....


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

The numbers are to identify the car so the correct car can be moved, so no, having the same numbers doesn't work in real life. You wouldn't want to load a car of grain and the receiver ends up getting a car of sand because the RR couldn't tell the difference between the two cars.

Note these markings come in two parts,

the "Reporting Marks" which are the 2-4 letter code identifying the owner, and the car number. These together form the car's unique ID.

There can be a CN 1234 and a UP 1234, but not two different UP 1234s at the same time.


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## cv_acr (Oct 28, 2011)

Some model railroaders can get away with not worrying about the numbers, as they just put a bunch of cars in a train and run it around the layout. 

This is fine, but it's not how real railroads work. Real railroads are in the business of moving stuff from point A to point B, so you have to have a way to identify which of those 2000 identical boxcars has your stuff in it.


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

If you are going to operate your layout by switching cars into the correct industry, then having different car numbers becomes almost a necessary. If you are just running trains of cars, then the numbers on the cars don't matter. On my layout the main traffic will be coal hoppers but I am able to have 2 cars of each number, one with a load of coal going East, and the other either empty or loaded with ore or stone going west. In that way I have doubled the number of hopper cars available since my preference is to not run several cars with the same number.


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## DonR (Oct 18, 2012)

There are inexpensive sheets of dry transfers available with numbers of various
colors, fonts and sizes. You can fairly easily scrape off, say the last digit,
and substitute an unused digit. I have two Identical Bachmann GP40s.
I used the above to give them two different numbers.

Don


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## thedoc (Oct 15, 2015)

DonR said:


> There are inexpensive sheets of dry transfers available with numbers of various
> colors, fonts and sizes. You can fairly easily scrape off, say the last digit,
> and substitute an unused digit. I have two Identical Bachmann GP40s.
> I used the above to give them two different numbers.
> ...



I have tried this with dry transfers and decals on hopper cars, in both cases the substitute numbers were slightly larger, enough to be noticeable, and much whiter than the printed number, again noticeable. I have also seem photos of cars on EBay where the car numbers have been changed, and it was too noticeable for me to consider.


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