Most Model Railroading info on 'Car Type' is severely out date..

[learmoia]

In my journey to setup JMRI Operations, I wanted accurate car type codes.. (I made a simplified code system based on Conrail's code system), but I wanted to look up something in the AAR Coding.

I have found when you type in 'Railroad Car Type' you either various Model Railroad sites that reference the two letter mechanical designation used from 1910 to 1970s.

The most railroad pages reference the very simplified one letter car type.. A=Boxcar, C=Covered Hopper, ect.. .

But I have yet to find a site that details the modern replacement to the two letter mechanical designation which is a 4 character alpha/numeric code.  I know it as AAR Car Type.

(I found it funny that one site talks about it then gives you a link to buy the $400 Official Railway Equipment guide book (But the book stopped listing the decoding info about 10 years ago.)

You can see it referenced in the RRPictureArchives as AAR Type, but I don't see they have a guide to what the codes mean unless you go into a specific car type listing.
AAR Type:   C311
Detail Info:  Covered Hopper, Gravity-Pneumatic Unloading, Permanent Roof, Less than 3000 cu ft capacity

But if your brave enough to look at the UMLER Data Specification manual, The AAR Car Types are listed in the appendices.
https://public.railinc.com/sites/default/files/documents/UmlerDataSpecs.pdf

Scroll down to page 350 and look for Appendix I: Equipment Type Codes (ETC)..

There ya go.. Modern Car Types..

~Ian

[Tad_T]

I find that the codes are listed in the ORER for each series of cars. The explanation is in the back.

I can see where you would want to use those codes.

But for me, I don’t find them that useful.

I don’t need four different codes for an LP Pulpwood Rack or even more when you add in codes for Pulpwood Racks from connecting roads.

And how many codes do you need for a Boxcar, really?

I’m sure that you see the utility of it because you know what you are looking at because you do it all of the time.

But for me, and I would submit that for most operators, it’s just getting lost in the weeds.

[learmoia]

@Tad_T

The detail here (in the prototype) is used more for car assignment rules, but is likely made redundant with pool codes or fleet assignments that are car specific.

But from the modeling perspective, I guess it depends on what your prototype is doing and how realistic you want to make it.

For instance, Conrail example I was looking at was using it's own 2-4 letter codes on track lists.. but I've gotten thrown off because Conrail's C is Coil car, and I'm used to C meaning Covered Hopper.

I got a fleet list of cars on the layout yesterday, and I was trying to assign car type codes last night, and started to rethink using the Conrail codes... If I'm confused, everyone is going to be confused.

For instance, Conrail example I was looking at was using it's own 2-4 letter codes on track lists.. but I've gotten thrown off because Conrail's C is Coil car, and I'm used to C meaning Covered Hopper.

From a historical perspective, Covered Hoppers were L (special car type) until the 1970s.

But I'm with you.. KISS (keep it simple stupid).. we just need the first letter and on the short line I worked, our track lists used the 1 letter.

On Tonight's video I'm going to try to load my fleet list into JMRI, but I want to have something in the car data that is detailed enough to do accurate car assignments.   For example, I don't want a fertilizer car assigned to a grain customer.. and "C" isn't going to cut it.

I'm hoping to be able to use the Kernel field or something along those lines, to keep the 'Car Type' a simple 1 letter value...

~Ian

[John]

Ian -- This is my take on the topic --

When I built my layout, I used the old 4 cycle car cards .. they became a pain in the a$$ and didn't provide for enough randomness so that the same cars didn't show up in the same train ..

When I switched to JMRI operations, I initially used the LO, HT, etc codes because I really didn't want to use Boxcar, HopperCoal, HopperSand, etc ..  but I also did not go down into the weeds there -- I used XM for box cars, not XML, etc .. because all I really wanted was a box car spotted at location A, mty or loaded as the situation dictated ..

Moving to the more modern single letter car types I think would make it easier to operate your layout.  There is flexibility in the software by editing the car type codes, or just adding your own .. you can also delete the "default codes" to reduce the clutter ..

You can always restrict a specific car by load type - so in the case of the fertilizer car you mentioned above, lets say its Covered Hopper CSXT 123455 it would be listed in the software a Car Type C -- Roadname CSXT, Number 123455 .. then change the options for load for that particular car to E and Fertilizer .. you can also add in the comments "Fertilizer Loading Only" or something like that .   

I certainly would not want to operate a layout where I have to worry about is CSXT 123455 ok to drop off at the flour mill, when it's been used for fertilizer or dried chick crap ...    C = covered hopper; 1 = gravity unloading; 1 = LO covered hopper;
2 = capacity of 3,000 to 4,000 cubic feet  -- it would have a tendency to get complicated for the casual user / visitor ..   then again, if you are the only thats going to be operating, then rule one applies ..

This is a good exercise and starts to dig in to the ops portion of JMRI for all to learn from

[Tad_T]

This is where you use dashes. You can see it. It doesn’t show up on the paperwork. Everything after the dash is invisible.

You would do it like:

Cvrd Hopper-Grain or LO-Grain

Cvrd Hopper-Fertilizer or LO-Fertilizer

Then you have two separate car types but on the paperwork they both are Cvrd Hopper or LO.

[Tad_T]

@learmoia

I guess if I were trying to be totally realistic and prototypical I would be using something like this:











Unfortunately I don’t have the whole train, just these three blocks.

I know that these are authentic because I retrieved them from caboose AD&N 17 a few days before the G&W sold it. I had permission.

I was given a lot of AD&N stuff by the old hands that were still around on the Arkansas, Louisiana & Mississippi. They said that the G&W wanted it all gone.

[learmoia]

This is where you use dashes. You can see it. It doesn’t show up on the paperwork. Everything after the dash is invisible.

You would do it like:

Cvrd Hopper-Grain or LO-Grain

Cvrd Hopper-Fertilizer or LO-Fertilizer

Then you have two separate car types but on the paperwork they both are Cvrd Hopper or LO.

OOOhhh The dash trick works there too, Good to know...

[lock4244]

@learmoia

Not sure if this will help, some of the info goes a ways back, but they include explanations:

http://nakina.net/other/aartype.html

[pedro]

The BNSF car kind manual runs 46 pages, including introduction and glossary. We use 3-letter/digit codes. I don’t know if every railroad uses their own system, but the guide is very detailed, breaking each car type down into very specific sub-types.  If anyone wants a .pdf of it, let me know. As far as I know, it’s not an “official” publication, but is passed around among employees to help decipher the codes.

[John]

@Tad_T

The detail here (in the prototype) is used more for car assignment rules, but is likely made redundant with pool codes or fleet assignments that are car specific.

Found this in jmri groupsio