Understanding Railroads: How to Read a Boxcar

So what does all that gibberish stenciled on the side of a boxcar tell you? It all means something to somebody. And after watching this, it will mean something to you too.

[@jamesstuart3346]

Don't forget my favorite stencil...DO NOT HUMP 😅

[@hifijohn]

oh behave!

[@killerbee6310]

LOL

[@captainkeyboard1007]

@@hifijohn 😀

[@RailRide]

8:50 While I, as you, prefer my railcars untagged, I find it noteworthy that some taggers have adopted the practice of masking out car stenciling before doing their deed, then removing said masks to leave the stenciling intact. There is no altruism at work here, of course -- they figured out that if the stenciling remained visible, the car owner would not bother destroying their "work" to restore it. The car depicted at the timestamp may be an example of this.

[@killerbee6310]

That makes total sense. I actually was thinking as I created the video and added this image that it didn't look like a standard restenciling job. But I never considered the taggers masking over it prior to tagging. Makes total sense. And thanks for commenting.

[@Orxenhorf]

Pretty sure it is. If you focus on the bottom, the lines above and below "M-921B" show the pattern of a spray can with wavy edges, and there are several vertical lines of incomplete coverage to the right of it.

[@captainkeyboard1007]

I enjoy reading the numbers off railcars. In this year 2024, I began to appreciate six-digit numbers like I have appreciated four-digit numbers on subway cars since I was a little child.

[@paul2486]

this channel is fantastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! for years I have wondered all about the things you are telling us about!! I love it!!!! I would love to know what is in the cars as they fly down the rails!! I also had the idea of putting the numbers up high to avoid the tagging!! I was thinking you could put a direct feed camera on cars that had a high probablity of being tagged to record the vandalism!! Put it up high and hide it well... and if the picture quality is good enough you can use the zoom feature... to get a ton of information about the tagging... time of day.. location... and even possibly a picture of the criminal!! Once you figure out the means of them doing this.. you have a better chance of stopping them!! again kudos to your channel!!!!!!!!!!

[@killerbee6310]

Thank you for the feedback. Lots of more ideas bouncing around in my head so more to come....

[@dfwrider3830]

a lot of good information in here, i believe the part about stenciling and graffiti is backwards actually. graffiti artists figured out that if they paint over those marks then it becomes a priority for the car to be repainted, wheras if they are still visible it is a lower priority. so the graffiti artists are stenciling them out themselves to avoid painting over them, so the railroad wont repaint the car.

[@killerbee6310]

yes indeed - several others pointed this out to me too. I find it interesting the taggers would tumble to this.

[@scottwalters6031]

Very informative. More please and thank you.

[@killerbee6310]

Indeed - more in the pipeline....

[@northwesttravels7234]

FYI, ERG 2024 for Android is a software version of the 2024 Emergency Response Guidebook (ERG) if you are interested in the materials placards. Good idea if you live near a rail line or highway (US DOT).

[@beeble2003]

Couple of minor corrections: 1. Reporting marks ending in X aren't necessarily shippers or lease companies. There are a couple of non-common-carrier railroads and their reporting marks also end in X. One example is the Cumberland Mine Railroad, CMYX. 2. Non-common-carrier reporting marks aren't necessarily four characters, though I think they must be at least three. AEX is probably the most well-known three-character example. 3. The car at 9:05 hasn't been restencilled -- the person who did the graffiti was careful to avoid painting over the data markings, precisely so that the railroad wouldn't obliterate their work by restencilling over it.

[@killerbee6310]

And I believe museums also can get reporting marks. Thanks for the clarifications.

[@beeble2003]

@@killerbee6310 Yes, I think you're right.

[@AllenCNW441]

Glad you properly named the “Consolidated Stencil” rather than the common & incorrect “COT&S panel”. In November 2017, AAR deleted the requirement for the stencil- a car’s built date must still be applied to the car. Have been in the RR industry for 50 years - when FRA went through the “U-1” wheel phase out, we discovered that the yellow dot (no U-1 wheels) tended to fade to white (U-1 wheels). Seemed there could have been a better way to display the wheel status - maybe one being a dot, the other a square….

[@killerbee6310]

I guess I'm just a kid - I retired after 41 years. I noticed on the image I picked to show the "yellow dot" that it indeed looked like it was fading to white. Thanks for watching and commenting.

[@AllenCNW441]

@@killerbee6310 Worked 36 years for the AAR’s Bureau of Explosives-retired 2010 as Chief Inspector-then started consulting business…

[@captainkeyboard1007]

That would be down to flat wheel.

[@paulbergen9114]

Very well done nice and concise and highlighting with the red marker one easily knows what you're referring to. I do miss the Black Box showing the build date but this became of less importance in the last 15 or 20 years. My favorite obscure one was that group of 500 C&NW covered hoppers circa 1979 or 80 that had L&N. Pas. That was the group from Ingalls Shipbuilding tested on the Louisville and Nashville at Pascagoula MS where they were built. I distinctly remember the St Clair cars when you'd watch the Milwaukee Road Ford fast going to the Twin Cities and all of those cars on L&N and Southern that were in some pool. Looking forward to another one with other details

[@killerbee6310]

I would seek out the Ford Fast also - train 203 ?? I loved seeing all the hy-cubes on the head end. I specifically watched for the DT&I cars myself. Especially the purplish ones versus the light blue. Thanks for watching and commenting !!

[@paulbergen9114]

@@killerbee6310 yes those DT&I cars in purple were an eye popper but disappeared quickly after the merger. I guess it was almost appropriate the last car out shopped by the Milwaukee Road car shops was a yellow repainted hi cube MS 10_84 if I recall. This is also an item apparently no longer required on the lower left corner where it would show the line either new or blt with a date. Or like Rblt 8/80 on.a batch of 50 ft boxcars with the interior gutted and the doors removed for wood chip service and would leaders serve the WC. Also sometimes after repair you could see the weight was changed like when a gondola got a new floor plunked down and the yard that worked on it would leave their initials. The MILW in MKE was DY Davies Yard and because of duplication CNW was MAD for Madison WI while MAD-I.was for Madison IL. Those little boxes always said a lot about where they traveled to. I know this stuff is trivial and a real trip down memory lane what's today's newer fans will never see some of this stuff. So here's to your area if I remember. MILW. GB \ CNW. GRBY. \ GBW. NOR. Those were the days

[@fogdan]

Very Cool Sir!!!

[@killerbee6310]

Thanks !!!

[@Sven_Okas1967]

Hehe, these are our labels on European freight wagons much more complicated to read. I'll leave out the fact that we have a different gauge gauge. Just specifying the maximum load weight for our different route classes leads to a large number of labels. Thanks for that video and greetings from Berlin/ Germany. Sven

[@killerbee6310]

Well thank you for watching and commenting.

[@beeble2003]

Most European lines are the same gauge as the US.

[@PennCentral99]

Nice educational video

[@killerbee6310]

Thank you

[@53ph3ra]

10 seconds in and I all ready know exactly where the intro was shot! Hello GB!

[@killerbee6310]

Yep - busted-LOL

[@53ph3ra]

@@killerbee6310 It was the background, what can I say...

[@SD45-ET44AC]

Interesting info , slightly different than having been explained to me previously, but that was by someone talking from a southeastern US perspective.

[@killerbee6310]

Am curious what you found different as everything should be uniform across the country....

[@beeble2003]

@@killerbee6310 Yeah, I'm pretty sure everything you said is US-wide.

[@FreihEitner]

In recent years I had begun to wonder why lease locomotives always have an X at the end of their reporting mark. Now I know (and knowing, as G.I. Joe once taught me, is half the battle).

[@johnbullaro6788]

very informative. learned a lot keep the info coming how about a part 2 on. the rail car lettering info

[@killerbee6310]

hmmm...let me ponder that....thank you for the interest

[@BudgieJane]

Why are some items on the side of a car so small that you can't read them unless you are up close to them? I'm thinking of the built date here.

[@killerbee6310]

Don't know but assumption is that the workers who need to read the stenciling would be standing right at the car.

[@amelierenoncule]

This is grande, mes amis...especially for a "foreigner", such as I ! Is that AAR association, a government entity, or not ?

[@killerbee6310]

Bonjour madame (or is it mademoiselle - pardon my ignorance). The AAR is the railroad industry's trade group. The railroads all belong to it and collectively set standards to abide by, lobby government, and form a united front publicly. They are not to be confused with the Federal Railroad Administration - FRA - which is the government regulatory body. And as always - thanks for watching !!

[@amelierenoncule]

@@killerbee6310 Merci, mon cheri. And BTW, as I am both over 18 yrs. of age, and married, the proper term is MADAME. TaTa ! i.imgur.com/3mapgAV.jpg

[@bemseer]

Nice video, but I still don’t know the difference between capacity and load limit.

[@killerbee6310]

Yes, sorry - I didn't go in to capacity because it is no longer required.

[@whiteknightcat]

2:34 - WHOE would be pronounced more like Whooooo-eee! (Think Jed Clampett) 5:14 - Might have been nice to review more of the dimensional data, as that can be confusing 5:45 - The consolidated stencil aka “COTS” (Clean, Oil, Test & Stencil) or, colloquially, “lube plates” use was mandated on new and rebuilt cars in 1972, then required on all cars after 1974. The format was originally a single "box", then a double box from 1974 through about 1982, then three boxes after that until the end of the mandate in 2016. 6:05 - The wheel inspection stencil was officially called the U-1 stencil as it referred to the U-1 batch of 33 inch wheels produced by the Southern Wheel Company. The inspections began in March, 1978 and cars stenciled with the white dot had to have their wheels replaced by the end of the year. Cars with passing or replaced wheels received the yellow dot. After that, there was no mandate to ever remove the stencil. 6:25 - The ACI label was also referred to as the KarTrak label - the AAR began mandating their use in 1967 but due to inaccuracies usually caused by dirt and debris accumulation on them, the program was abandoned in 1977 7:25 - A quick picture of one of those Automatic Car Identification (ACI) tags would have been useful - the use of those RFID tags was mandated beginning in 1992. 7:30 - Prior to the 1980's, federal regulations mandated that empty railcars be returned to their owners - after de-regulation, empty cars could be used for backhaul if business could be found, which allowed for better equipment utilization 8:50 - Those are not re-stencils - the taggers masked off the data before applying their "artwork"

[@killerbee6310]

This is the downside of feeling like I have to brief so I don't lose my audience. I try to keep these videos to five minutes and this one ran ten and I still was cutting things short. I started my railroad career in Car Management in 1981, so had to know Car Service Rule 2, CSD's and how to apply SCO-90 and SCO-100 in order to properly dispose of empty cars. This could be a whole another topic. It is a little debatable whether being able to reload cars on a backhaul led to better utilization because you could hold the car until you found a load and reclaim the holding time from the owner - so there was no incentive to promptly find the reload. If the owner wanted their car back, they had to pay Rule 5 to the car owner. Almost seemed like seizing of property. But Conrail was a big proponent of it, if I remember correctly.

[@whiteknightcat]

@@killerbee6310 Understood. I was not aware of self-imposed time limits - I've seen videos from a few seconds long to over an hour depending on the topic, but yes, shorter videos would keep an audience engaged more.

[@anthonysparkman712]

Did anyone notice the car at 9:43. That the letter N was stenciled wrong. lol

[@killerbee6310]

Yep - put it in for that very reason. I always hoped this was a one -off. Kind like the sign I saw once on the GTW at Richmond, MI nicely painted GT RAOD CLOSED

[@captainkeyboard1007]

The graffiti painted on the freight cars is scribble-scrabble, and I agree with you that it is not attractive artwork. It is an eyesore of a nuisance to me. Those scribbled railcars look boring and are badly defaced.