Doug,
That's an interesting point about the U.P. using older marks because of the size of their fleet. One of the duties of the group I headed at My former employer was to assign car numbers to new equipment as it was ordered out of the new car plants or for existing cars purchased from others.
We used six digits which provides for 999,999 car numbers. There are only two marks One series for tanks, with each series,100,000 etc,etc for specific car types. The other for covered hoppers.
There are other marks but they were acquired with existing purchased cars and are not expanded upon. The switch to 6 digits took place around 1982 when the company got tired of trying to find blocks of 5 digit numbers that could be reused after the former cars wearing those numbers were all retired.
By the way the entire North American fleet is 1.6 million cars according to the most recent data from Railinc. A recent equipment register shows the U.P. Fleet was a hair more than 71,000. Second largest of the RRs. But far smaller than the likes of CIT,TTX,GATX,UTLX,Wells Fargo,etc.
Leo
Hol, my understanding for UP’s use of reporting marks from their heritage fleet is that UP’s fleet is so large they were running out of numbers for new cars and locos. Using the heritage reporting marks expands their roster and thus the numbers they can use. Of course there is also the trademark issue, use proves they still own those names and logos. A few years ago UP was prepared to sue model manufactures who did not pay an exorbitant user fee. Fortunately for modelers someone got to their legal team and UP became easier to work with. Perhaps because BNSF was very cooperative with model manufactures. Doug Harding www.iowacentralrr.org
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