Interesting; I did not realize that most tank cars were not owned by the RR: RailRoad Owned tank cars
One of the reasons “The Hunter” can talk so big about replacing all the DOT111 or upgrading them. CP has a very small tanker fleet.
A lot of the NA tanker fleet is on lease.
Yep, most tank cars are leased as normally the tank traffic isn’t as steady as say intermodal, or grain where dedicated cars are in service. BNSF recently made the ‘news’ when they announce a purchase of 5000 tank cars. Let’s see a standard unit oil train is 110 cars, so that equals only 45.45 unit trains. That leaves only 22 loaded unit trains if the numbers are split 50/50. Not too many for as large of a railroad that BNSF is.
And that explains why the reporting marks on tank cars are usually leasing company marks or private owner marks. So the models we see of railroad paint schemes and reporting marks on tank cars are probably incorrect.
Any reporting mark with an “X” at the end signifies a leasing company owned equipment. Different than a railroad leasing a piece of equipment from a leasing company… RR’s will often lease power instead of buying.
And if you check the locomotive carefully, you may find it says 'Property of GE Leasing" or similar. I even saw that sign on a SouthWest Airlines plane !
Not to mention sub lettereing below the cab number…NS is a holding company that owns the Southern and N&W railraods and Co G, and Interstate, and all the others in the heritage fleet…you can still see a small SOU or NW below the cab numbers on some units indicating ownership by the RR instead of by the holding company…course thats just on paper or so they tell me…Sorta like does anyone know what CSX stands for? Its NOT Chessie System Transportation…(or Crash, Spill, and eXplode)