Al Stangenberger Wrote:
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> I frequently see a cut of fairly new hopper cars
> parked on the UP in Albany CA (just west of
> Stege), waiting to go east for another load. They
> carry CMO reporting marks. CMO merged into C&NW
> in 1972, and C&NW then merged into UP, so those
> CMO marks are really obsolete - much older than
> the cars carrying them.
>
> Could part of the reason for still using the CMO
> marks be that UP has so many cars that the numbers
> would be too big for the ID tags to handle if they
> tried to mark these cars as UP?

That would only be an issue is UP had more than 999,999
cars, which is doesn't.

I agree, it's to keep certain blocks of leased equipment
in specific markings. This is for the benefit of the financing
companies and also has an effect on car repair billing when
a freight car has to be sent to the rip track on another railroad.

It wasn't that long ago that UP was running a lot of grain cars
with the symbol CRGX but with UP shields on the cars. That was
because the cars had been financed by Cargill and were in assigned
service to them. The same is true of other blocks of cars.