NYCTA Hopper Cars

The cars couldn't be FRA-compliant since the FRA didn't yet exist. They were, however, ICC-compliant except for a lack of reporting marks.

This same sort of question came up several months ago, in connection with several locomotives and a host of cars lettered for fictional railroads and industries which were moved from western Ohio to northern Pennsylvania for use in filming a movie.

The answer seemed to be "interchange service" involves a lot more than just the fact that a car moves from one railroad's tracks to another's. Apparently the cars and locomotives for the movie were moved under contracts which specified particular pieces of equipment, to be moved at particular times. That's different from "interchange service" where one railroad agrees to complete a contract for transportation services written by another, and to return or load the empty cars (as governed by car service rules) when that job is done.

Similarly, the PRR gained access to certain coal mines in Indiana County by handing certain cars off to the B&O. The place where this was done was NOT listed by the ICC as "connection for the interchange of traffic" since the hand-off was not considered interchange. The PRR set out certain cars, instructed the B&O which cars were to go to which mine. After B&O took the cars to their destinations, B&O picked up returned the same cars to the transfer.

This is different from "interchange" for then, PRR would be handing empty cars to B&O only if those cars had been received loaded from B&O and would have no control over what became of those cars once handed to B&O. Whether this sort of thing is "a gentleman's agreement" or "a business contract" could be argued. Whatever it is, it's not "interchange service".

Best explanation yet. Blows the need for "reporting marks" totally out of the water.

to statkowski and rnetzlof: i thank you for correcting my error; however my recall of the lettering of those hopper cars are correct.

since my last post i found a color photo.the letters NYCTA are placed individually on the car's side panels about 2 feet down from the car top,the letter "C" in the middle panel with the car number spaced about 2 feet below it [i'm unable to see the number clearly,looks like 3 digits prefixed by the number2],car data on the rest of the panels.on the A and B ends on the top is the car number not sure if NYCTA included.

I really do not know about back then, but I do know now that NYCT MOW equipment, especially hoppers and other freight cars, do not leave the system anymore. Most ballast loading is accomplished at, if knowledge serves me right, 38th Street Yard in Brooklyn (9th Avenue D/M), Westchester Yard (6) or Linden Yard, Brooklyn,(adjacent to the L Line and the NYAR Bay Ridge Line), and the ballast, for the most part, is trucked in to the said locations. The NYCT freight cars (hoppers and flatcars) do not have reporting marks as typical railroad freight cars do. They only have NYCT car letter/numeral identifying designations on the sides. The only exception I have seen to ballast loading was watching ballast loaded on a G.O. work train for the #7 Line trackwork between Queensboro Plaza and Times Square, being loaded outside of Hunterspoint Avenue, by NYCT MOW bulldozers and equipment stationed on the Amtrak ROW by the mouth of the #7 tunnel east of Hunterspoint Avenue. For the most part, again, ballast loading is accomplished at one of the above listed locations.