Reporting mark

thumb|Reporting marks on two Canadian Pacific [[covered hopper cars; with the left car marked as CP 388686 and the right car marked as SOO 115239]]

A reporting mark is a code used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain rail transport networks. The code typically reflects the name or identifying number of the owner, lessee, or operator of the equipment, similar to IATA airline designators.

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 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.

Standard practices

North America

thumb|A [[covered hopper with SHPX markings]]

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 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. The standard ISO 6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers.

When 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. 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 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 a hyphen. Some examples:

{| class="wikitable"

! Code !! Country !! Keeper

| A-ÖBB || Austria || Österreichische Bundesbahnen

| B-Ⓑ || Belgium || National Railway Company of Belgium, which uses an encircled blue B as its logo. Using either 'NMBS' or 'SNCB' (acronyms of its name in respectively Dutch and French) would not be linguistically neutral and thus a politically charged decision in Belgium.

| CH-SBB || Confoederatio Helvetica (Switzerland) || Schweizer Bundesbahnen

| D-DB || Deutschland (Germany)|| Deutsche Bahn AG

| F-SNCF || France || Société nationale des chemins de fer français

| I-FS || Italy || Ferrovie dello Stato Italiane

| L-CFL || Luxembourg || Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois

| NL-NS || Netherlands || Nederlandse Spoorwegen

| TR-TCDD || Turkey || Türkiye Cumhuriyeti Devlet Demiryolları

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.

Europe 1964 to 2005

thumb|right|upright=2.0|BLS coaches, on the left still with owner code 63, on the right with country code 85 and VKM BLS

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 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 the VKM BLS. Example for an "Einheitswagen" delivered in 1957:

delivered as BLS B 831
renumbered with UIC number 50 63 20-33 801-5
rebuilt 1991 and renumbered 50 63 20-33 705-4
registered as 50 85 20-35 451-7 CH-BLS

United Kingdom

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 the railways and registered with the Railway Clearing House.

India

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 the railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways, Government of India.

{| class="wikitable sortable"

|+ List of IR Zones

! Railway Zone

! Code

! Zone Headquarters

| 1. || Northern Railway || style="text-align:center;" | NR || Delhi

| 2. || North Eastern Railway || style="text-align:center;" | NER || Gorakhpur

| 3. || Northeast Frontier Railway || style="text-align:center;" | NFR || Guwahati

| 4. || Eastern Railway || style="text-align:center;"| ER || Kolkata

| 5. || South Eastern Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SER || Kolkata

| 6. || South Central Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SCR || Secunderabad (Hyderabad)

| 7. || Southern Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SR || Chennai

| 8. || Central Railway || style="text-align:center;"| CR || Mumbai

| 9. || Western Railway || style="text-align:center;" | WR || Mumbai

| 10. || South Western Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SWR || Hubballi

| 11. || North Western Railway || style="text-align:center;" | NWR || Jaipur

| 12. || West Central Railway || style="text-align:center;" | WCR || Jabalpur

| 13. || North Central Railway || style="text-align:center;" | NCR || Allahabad

| 14. || South East Central Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SECR || Bilaspur

| 15. || East Coast Railway || style="text-align:center;" | ECoR || Bhubaneswar

| 16. || East Central Railway || style="text-align:center;" | ECR || Hajipur

| 17. || Kolkata Metro || style="text-align:center;" | MR || Kolkata

| 18. || South Coast Railway || style="text-align:center;" | SCoR || Visakhapatnam

Notes

References

External links

Reporting Marks 1920-present – unofficial and incomplete compilation of historic reporting marks