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41-653: The Cartier Railway ( reporting marks AMMC , AMIC , AMC ) (formerly CFC and QCM ) is a privately owned railway that operates 260 miles (418 km) of track in the Canadian province of Québec . It is operated by the Cartier Railway Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arcelor Mittal , formerly Québec Cartier Mining Company . The railway connects the company's huge iron ore mine at Mont-Wright in Northeastern Québec with

82-695: A 2-digit code indicating the vehicle's register country . The registered keeper of a vehicle is now indicated by a separate Vehicle Keeper Marking (VKM), usually the name of the owning company or an abbreviation thereof, which must be registered with the Intergovernmental Organisation for International Carriage by Rail (OTIF) and the European Union Agency for Railways (ERA) and which is unique throughout Europe and parts of Asia and Northern Africa. The VKM must be between two and five letters in length and can use any of

123-464: A hyphen. Some examples: When a vehicle is sold it will not normally be transferred to another register. The Czech railways bought large numbers of coaches from ÖBB. The number remained the same but the VKM changed from A-ÖBB to A-ČD. The UIC introduced a uniform numbering system for their members based on a 12-digit number, largely known as UIC number . The third and fourth digit of the number indicated

164-700: A predecessor of the CNW, from which the UP inherited it. Similarly, during the breakup of Conrail , the long-retired marks of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and New York Central Railroad (NYC) were temporarily brought back and applied to much of Conrail's fleet to signify which cars and locomotives were to go to CSX (all cars labeled NYC) and which to Norfolk Southern (all cars labeled PRR). Some of these cars still retain their temporary NYC marks. Because of its size, this list has been split into subpages based on

205-584: A subsidiary of the AAR, maintains the active reporting marks for the North American rail industry. Under current practice, the first letter must match the initial letter of the railroad name. As it also acts as a Standard Carrier Alpha Code , the reporting mark cannot conflict with codes in use by other nonrail carriers. Marks ending with the letter "X" are assigned to companies or individuals who own railcars, but are not operating railroads; for example,

246-544: Is 12,090 ft (3,685 m) and Love at 14,200 ft (4,328 m). Since southbound loaded ore trains never enter the sidings, the south ends of each siding have power switches while the north ends have spring switches. However, both Fox and Love sidings have power switches at both ends. From Port-Cartier the railway runs northwest along the Aux Rochers River valley and north along the east shore of Lake Quatre Lieues before running west and then north along

287-564: Is 8 kilometres (5.0 mi) from Gagnon , which was closed in 1985 and is now a ghost town. The lake is 1.7 kilometres (1.1 mi) long and 800 metres (2,600 ft) wide. A watercourse drains the lake through the mine dumps and a series of small lakes before running into the Manicouagan Reservoir . The lake's name seems to have been given by a prospector for the Québec Cartier Mining Company who

328-488: Is used to uniquely identify every such rail car or locomotive, thus allowing it to be tracked by the railroad it is traveling over, which shares the information with other railroads and customers. In multinational registries, a code indicating the home country may also be included. The Association of American Railroads (AAR) assigns marks to all carriers, under authority granted by the U.S. Surface Transportation Board , Transport Canada , and Mexican Government. Railinc ,

369-718: The Arnaud Railway is completely isolated from any other railway network in North America . Although the other railways connect to each other, they do not have any direct connections to this railway, making this one completely isolated from any other railway, aside from rail ferry service via COGEMA to the CN Rail port at Matane, Quebec . In 1958, United States Steel formed the Québec Cartier Mining Company to construct an iron-ore mine in

410-638: The MacDonald River valley beside the proposed Lake Walker National Park as far as Lac Valilée . The railway continues northwest to Lake Bourgeois , and runs northward up the east shore of this lake and then of Grand lac Caotibi , running between this lake and Lake Arthur . It then follows the east shore of Petit lac Caotibi to the Rivière Toulnustouc Nord-Est , and follows this river valley northeast and then north past Lac Cartier. Through almost all of this southern section

451-669: The TTX Company (formerly Trailer Train Company) is named for its original reporting mark of TTX. In another example, the reporting mark for state-funded Amtrak services in California is CDTX (whereas the usual Amtrak mark is AMTK) because the state transportation agency ( Caltrans ) owns the equipment used in these services. This may also apply to commuter rail, for example Metrolink in Southern California uses

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492-513: The 26 letters of the Latin alphabet . Diacritical marks may also be used, but they are ignored in data processing (for example, Ö is treated as though it is O ). The VKM is preceded by the code for the country (according to the alphabetical coding system described in Appendix 4 to the 1949 convention and Article 45(4) of the 1968 convention on road traffic), where the vehicle is registered and

533-475: The Canadian National. By 2002, the old ALCO and MLW locomotives were being replaced by newer General Electric AC4400CWs . The Cartier Railway's fleet, as of March 2020, consists of: Reporting mark In North America , the mark, which consists of an alphabetic code of two to four letters, is stenciled on each piece of equipment, along with a one- to six-digit number. This information

574-668: The Mont Wright extension. Finally in 1973, the Duluth, Missabe & Iron Range sent three ALCO C630 locomotives to the Cartier Railway, with 7 more arriving in 1976. These units were oddballs on the DM&;IR because the rest of their fleet was all Electro-Motive Division units, but they fit in very well on the Cartier Railway. Several more M636s were purchased new from MLW during 1976, as well as several acquired used from

615-664: The Rochers and Toulnustouc River valleys to keep the grades at a minimum. The ruling grade for southbound loaded trains was kept to a very easy 0.4% while the northbound ruling grade was only 1.35%. Numerous rock cuts had to be blasted and five tunnels, ranging from 350 to 1,440 feet (110 to 440 m), were built where rock cuts were not possible. The heavy-haul nature of this railway required all sections of its mainline, including sidings and yard tracks, to be constructed using very sturdy 132-pound-per-yard (65 kg/m) rail in 78-foot (24 m) lengths. Since curves account for 54.3% of

656-682: The VKM BLS. Example for an "Einheitswagen" delivered in 1957: In the United Kingdom, prior to nationalisation, wagons owned by the major railways were marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway concerned; for example, wagons of the Great Western Railway were marked "G W"; those of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway were marked "L M S", etc. The codes were agreed between

697-541: The acquiring company discontinues the name or mark of the acquired company, the discontinued mark is referred to as a "fallen flag" railway. Occasionally, long-disused marks are suddenly revived by the companies which now own them. For example, in recent years, the Union Pacific Railroad has begun to use the mark CMO on newly built covered hoppers, gondolas and five-bay coal hoppers. CMO originally belonged to Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis and Omaha Railway ,

738-569: The additional volume. Six M636 locomotives were purchased from Montreal Locomotive Works , while Marine Industries of Sorel, Québec built 130 additional ore cars. One of the new M636 locomotives would have an extremely short career. On May 31, 1972, M636 #72, along with GP9's 52 and 58 and RS-18 61, ran away and derailed along with 134 ore cars on the grade, Milepost 62.4 between the sidings of Dog and Eva. Both crew members and an unauthorized passenger were killed and all units, including #72, just on its second trip, were written off and scrapped on

779-644: The company's processing plant and port at Port-Cartier , formerly Shelter Bay, which is located on the northern banks of the St. Lawrence River . The Cartier Railway has 26 locomotives, over 950 ore cars, 300 utility cars, and various other pieces of maintenance equipment . The railway, along with other Northeastern Québec railways, including the Tshiuetin Rail Transportation line, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and

820-448: The first letter of the reporting mark: A railway vehicle must be registered in the relevant state's National Vehicle Register (NVR), as part of which process it will be assigned a 12-digit European Vehicle Number (EVN). The EVN schema is essentially the same as that used by the earlier UIC numbering systems for tractive vehicles and wagons , except that it replaces the 2-digit vehicle owner's code (see § Europe 1964 to 2005 ) with

861-415: The first shipload of concentrate departed the port on July 5, 1961. The Cartier Railway is an engineering marvel, and was constructed using all the modern, state-of-the art techniques available at the time, including making extensive use of aerial mapping to select the best route through the very mountainous terrain. The initial 190-mile (306 km) rail line used natural drainage extensively by following

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902-519: The iron-rich Quebec-Labrador Trough, a 40-by-600-mile (64 by 966 km) long band which cuts through the vast Canadian Shield. Earlier exploration by mine geologists discovered a large deposit in the Trough near Lac Jeannine , about 186 miles (299 km) north of the small town of Shelter Bay, which was located on the northern banks of the St. Lawrence River. In 1959, Shelter Bay, now renamed Port Cartier,

943-411: The main line, extensive use of flange oilers was needed. The oilers were located every 8 miles (13 km) or 250 degrees of curvature, whichever was less. Granite, blasted and removed during construction of the harbour at Port Cartier was crushed and used as ballast on the first 54 miles (87 km) of the line, while local pit-run gravel was used for the remainder. Twenty-two bridges were needed for

984-402: The mill and the town of Gagnon were closed. The accessible part of the tailings, about 127 million tons in a sub-aerial pile, cover about 2.7 square kilometres (1.0 sq mi). They are just under 10% iron. Another 26 million tons were deposited in the open pit mine, which has since flooded. In February 2007 it was announced that Quinto Mining of British Columbia had acquired an option of

1025-444: The mine and it would keep the ore insulated until it reached the unloader at Port-Cartier. In 1972, as the original Lac Jeannine deposit was starting to run out, the railway was extended an additional 86 miles (138 km) to a new ore deposit located near Mont Wright. Morrison-Knudsen was the construction company that built the extension. The new line departed the original line at Milepost 174, just north of Love Siding. This location

1066-426: The next ten years. One of the biggest problems faced by the Cartier Railway during the winter months was keeping the concentrate from freezing to the sides of the ore cars, which could make dumping the concentrate a very slow process. The solution to this problem was to line the insides of the ore cars with styrofoam sheets which were then covered with plywood . Steam was injected into the plywood/styrofoam liner at

1107-572: The owner of a reporting mark is taken over by another company, the old mark becomes the property of the new company. For example, when the Union Pacific Railroad (mark UP) acquired the Chicago and North Western Railway (mark CNW) in 1995, it retained the CNW mark rather than immediately repaint all acquired equipment. Some companies own several marks that are used to identify different classes of cars, such as boxcars or gondolas. If

1148-405: The owner, or more precisely the keeper of the vehicle. Thus each UIC member got a two-digit owner code . With the introduction of national vehicle registers this code became a country code. Some vehicles had to be renumbered as a consequence. The Swiss company BLS Lötschbergbahn had the owner code 63. When their vehicles were registered, they got numbers with the country code 85 for Switzerland and

1189-710: The railway runs beside Quebec Route 389 . Initial operations consisted of 150-car, 19,000 ton ore trains pulled by five diesel locomotives. The startup fleet of locomotives consisted of nine General Motors Diesel Division GP9 locomotives and eight Montreal Locomotive Works RS-18 locomotives. A fleet of 500 ore cars was constructed by Canadian Car and Foundry . The first full year saw 8,130,000 tons of concentrate shipped with three trainsets cycling between Lac Jeannine and Port-Cartier. Winter operations would see trains' length dropped down to as few as 90 cars with more trainsets added to keep up with production. The railway would move an average of eight to nine million tons for

1230-708: The railway runs through the Port-Cartier–Sept-Îles Wildlife Reserve . The railway continues to follow the Rivière Toulnustouc Nord-Est north and then northwest, then runs northwest to Petit lac Manicouagan . It follows the south and west shores of this lake, crossing the Hart-Jaune Dam over the Hart Jaune River . From here it runs north of northwest across marshy terrain to Mont-Wright. In its last section

1271-604: The railway, with the bridge at Milepost 68.5 being the longest (880 feet or 270 metres) and highest (120 feet or 37 metres) on the line. The railway also required the construction of 1,524 culverts for drainage. The entire line was equipped with Centralized Traffic Control from the very beginning and the railway has twelve sidings between Port-Cartier and Lac Jeannine , named in alphabetical order from south to north. The siding names are Able, Baker, Charles, Dog, Eva, Fox, Georges, Howe, Item, Jig, Kay, and Love. All sidings are 6,600 ft (2,012 m) in length except for Fox which

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1312-551: The railways and registered with the Ministry of Railways , Government of India . Lac Jeannine Lake Jeannine ( French : Lac Jeannine ) is a small lake in the Côte-Nord region of Quebec, Canada. It was the site of a major iron ore mining operation in the 1960s and 1970s. Lac Jeannine is in the unorganized territory of Rivière-Mouchalagane , Caniapiscau, Quebec. It is just east of Quebec Route 389 . Lac Jeannine

1353-762: The railways and registered with the Railway Clearing House . In India, wagons owned by the Indian Railways are marked with codes of two to four letters, these codes normally being the initials of the railway divisions concerned along with the Hindi abbreviation; for example, trains of the Western Railway zone are marked "WR" and "प रे"; those of the Central Railway zone are marked "CR" and "मध्य", etc. The codes are agreed between

1394-820: The reporting mark SCAX because the equipment is owned by the Southern California Regional Rail Authority —which owns the Metrolink system—even though it is operated by Amtrak. This is why the reporting mark for CSX Transportation , which is an operating railroad, is CSXT instead of CSX. Private (non-common carrier) freight car owners in Mexico were issued, up until around 1990, reporting marks ending in two X's, possibly to signify that their cars followed different regulations (such as bans on friction bearing trucks) than their American counterparts and so their viability for interchange service

1435-487: The spot. The accident was believed to be caused by crew fatigue. The railway suddenly found itself short of equipment again and fellow U.S. Steel railway Bessemer & Lake Erie sent four of its ALCO RSD-15 locomotives to the Cartier Railway in June 1972. Two more RSD-15's headed north in 1973. The Cartier Railway also acquired from Morrison-Knudsen three ALCO C636 demonstrators, which were used during construction of

1476-446: Was $ 325 million. The first load of iron ore concentrate was shipped in June 1961. From then until 1976 the mine employed more than 1,000 workers. The ore processing plant at Lac Jeannine had 12 identical processing lines. The first stage was autogenous grinding , and then the ore was separated using a gravimetric circuit with spiral classifiers. The ore from the circuit was filtered, and then shipped by rail to Port-Cartier. The deposit

1517-483: Was 701 metres (2,300 ft) long, 243 metres (797 ft) wide and 304 metres (997 ft) deep. It yielded over 266 million tons with an average concentration of 33%. The iron mine was in production from 1961 to 1976. The company made further investments in the 1970s at Mont-Wright , Fermont and Fire Lake , but during a steel market crisis was forced to shut down Lac-Jeannine. The mill at Lac Jeannine continued to treat iron ore from Fire Lake until 1985. That year

1558-580: Was impaired. This often resulted in five-letter reporting marks, an option not otherwise allowed by the AAR. Companies owning trailers used in trailer-on-flatcar service are assigned marks ending with the letter "Z", and the National Motor Freight Traffic Association , which maintains the list of Standard Carrier Alpha Codes, assigns marks ending in "U" to owners of intermodal containers . The standard ISO 6346 covers identifiers for intermodal containers. When

1599-436: Was named South Junction by the railway. The terrain was much milder on the new extension and only five bridges needed to be constructed. Six additional 6,600 ft (2,012 m) sidings were constructed and continued the alphabetical naming. These sidings are named Mike, Nan, Oboe, Pat, Queen, and Rob. Production at the Mont Wright mine was planned at 19 million tons per year, requiring additional railway equipment to handle

1640-460: Was part of the team that discovered the rich deposit of iron ore in 1957. The mining operation has its origin on 26 January 1957 when the Québec Cartier Mining Company was created by U.S. Steel to supply iron ore concentrate. The mine, the town to support 4,000 people, the Hart-Jaune power station and the railway linking the mine to Port-Cartier were built between 1958 and 1961. The cost

1681-445: Was ready for use allowing easier delivery of equipment for the mine and railway, which were still under construction. Construction was completed on the 190-mile (306 km) railway line between Port Cartier and Lac Jeannine on December 19, 1960. The first trainload of iron concentrate left Lac Jeannine on December 16, 1960. Concentrate was stockpiled at Port Cartier while the mine and concentrator were gearing up for full production and

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