Why is "Ry" the abbreviation for "Railroad?" - Model Railroader Magazine

May 2024 ยท 3 minute read

Doughless

If you visit rrpicturesarchives.net and search by railroad, you'll notice that the official reporting marks typically end in RR or RY, but not always, especially if its been around for a long time or is a big railroad. (BNSF is simply BNSF).

It's not as much age as it is how they registered the marks and how long the road name is.

Railroad or railway or company or lines generally has more to do with reorganizations and bankruptcies than anything else.  Most railroads have been multiple "things" over the course of their history as they were merged, went through bankruptcy and reorganization or other events.

For example the Reading Railroad in the "modern era" wasn't the Reading Railroad, it was the Reading Company.  If you look at a Reading passenger car it has that name in the letter boards.  That came about as  the result of an anti-trust lawsuit.

Modern reporting marks are limited to 4 characters, older, pre-computer reporting marks could be much longer.  NH (modern) vs. NYNH&HR (older).  The majority of reporting marks don't include "RR" or "RWY" or "RY".

Other reporting marks have an X if the equipment is owned by a leasing company. 

It's actually equipment owned by someone other than a railroad.While you are correct it could be a leasing company (GATX), it could be an industry (DUPX), or it could be a government agency (DODX).  Also a leasing company may own and have a long term lease cars to a railroad and the railroad puts their initials on the car.  They are "leased" cars owned by a leasing company but operated by the rairlroad as their own.

I believe the marks are the offical abbreviations for a Railroad or a Railway in the companies title, save for the few times a company may have changed its name for legal reasons.

Reporting marks are registered with that Master Car Builders Assoc (MCB), the American Railroad Association (ARA) or the American Association of Railroads (AAR) depending on era and they mark the owner of the car for billing and repair purposes.  If you look at an Official Railway Equipment Register (ORER), at the top of each railroad or car owner's section it will say something like "the cars of this company are marked ..." and give a list of the reporting marks owned/used by that company.  Railroad cars can have company names painted on the side, but the railroads really don't care about that, they need to know who the owner of the car is, and that's what the reporting marks tell them.  They need to know the owner because the owner is the one who gets the bills for repairs to the cars and is the one who gets the car hire or mileage payments.  Each railroad's ORER listing also has an address of where to send car hire and repair bills.

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