RAILforum: The X

This is topic The X in forum RailFan at RAILforum.

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Posted by dirtysd9 (Member # 106) on :

What does the X mean in leasing companies like GATX, HLCX, ATGX, or such as CSX?

Posted by ajy6b (Member # 77) on :

First CSX official railroad marking is CSXT. CSX unofficially stands for Chessie, Seaboard and X for others; the T is for transportation.

The x at the end of an official FRA marking means that the company is a leasing company and does not own any track. That is why you see leasing company FURX, HMLX, TTX, GATX, etc. Conrail and I believe GE owned a leasing service, called LMS (Lease Management Services). Since LMS was partially owned by a railroad the X did not apply.

However, there may be a gray area now that I think of it. Morisson Knudsen locomotive leasing has MPI marking. So I believe the applies only to the car markings, not locomotives. But the leasing companies are not prohibited from marking the X on their leased locomotives in order to aid lease name recognition.

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AJ Y6b N&W and Conrail Fan
http://communities.msn.com/TheGRRModelRR (my page)

http://www.nvrra.org (my club's page)

Posted by John B. Bredin (Member # 109) on :

I'm pretty sure that the X means any car owner other than a freight railroad.

Metra, the commuter rail system in Chicago, operates its own trains and owns a lot of its own track. By any reckoning, its a railroad. It's certainly not a leasing company But Metra's track repair equipment is marked METX.

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John B. Bredin
jbredin@planning.org

Posted by William (Member # 91) on :

could it just be a space filler?

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William Sweeney