26-809: The New Hope Railroad ( reporting mark NHRR ), formerly and colloquially known as the New Hope and Ivyland Railroad and New Hope Steam Railway and Museum , is a shortline and heritage railroad located in New Hope, Pennsylvania . Today, the railroad operates both steam and diesel powered locomotives and is an associate member of Northeast Operating Rules Advisory Committee . The heritage operations use both steam and diesel powered locomotives for excursion trips out of New Hope . Regular NHRR excursions typically operate between New Hope and Lahaska, with some occasionally going to Buckingham Valley. The railroad mostly uses former Reading Company passenger cars, which date between 1914 and 1932, for excursions. NHRR
52-458: A Doodlebug after electric service was introduced between Hatboro and Philadelphia. In June 1952, Hatboro-New Hope passenger service terminated. In the early 1960s, the RDG's financial situation was precarious. Looking to rid themselves of unprofitable branch lines via abandonment, a group of train aficionados and businessmen led by Philadelphia attorney Kenneth Souser established Steam Trains, Inc. with
78-695: 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
104-464: 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
130-700: 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
156-770: A weekly basis. The line currently operated by the New Hope Railroad was originally known as the New Hope Branch of the Reading Company (RDG), which leased it to the North Pennsylvania Railroad , of which it was a part. The railroad ran as far as Hartsville Station (near Bristol Road, which eventually became Ivyland) until March 29, 1891, when the line was extended to the long-desired terminal of New Hope, Pennsylvania. In 1932, steam powered trains above Hatboro were replaced with
182-602: Is involved in the import and export of raw materials and manufactured products. Freight customers range from national chemical companies to consumer product manufacturers. NHRR interchanges with Pennsylvania Northeastern Railroad in Johnsville, which in turn interchanges with CSX Transportation in Lansdale . NHRR's primary customers are based in Warminster; CRC Industries , Castrol and Double H Plastics are served on
208-669: 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
234-513: 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
260-568: 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,
286-695: The Buckingham Valley Trolley Association [BVTA] (now the Electric City Trolley Museum Association ) were operating state-sponsored passenger service connecting the touristy town of New Hope with SEPTA/ Conrail commuter trains at Warminster. Bucks County had made a wise investment, as both passenger and freight service flourished during the 1970s once track upgrades were made. Finally, on June 30, 1979, NHRR finally emerged from its decade-long bankruptcy. Beginning July 3, 1980, volunteers of
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#1732779976222312-643: The New Hope Steam Railway (NHOP) resumed weekend excursion service after the BVTA decided to end it. The NHOP ran trains under a lease agreement with the BCIDC until 1990, when the line and its equipment were once again in a state of decay and disrepair. The McHugh Bros. operated NHIR until 1989 when their lease ended and the Morristown & Erie was contracted to operate the railroad. The BCIDC sold
338-510: The Southern portion of the line from Ivyland to just north of Almshouse Road, were sold to the former Philadelphia Electric Company (now Exelon ) in order to stay solvent. Due to extremely low ticket prices to generate sales that led to no additional income of riders, Steam Trains, Inc. declared bankruptcy on June 5, 1970. Operations continued under a court-appointed trustee. The Bucks County Industrial Development Corporation (BCIDC) purchased
364-682: 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
390-541: 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 ,
416-448: 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
442-516: The goal of operating steam trains on a for-profit basis. Steam Trains, Inc. became organized as the ' New Hope & Ivyland Railroad (NHIR), and on June 20, 1966, the 16.7-mile line was sold for $ 200,000. Steam Trains, Inc. started their operations on August 6, 1966 on a high note, often in an extravagant fashion, with the purchase of four steam locomotives and seven passenger cars. The company leased freight locomotives from RDG, and used only hired labor to operate their excursions. The "air rights" over
468-540: The line outright to the for-profit Bucks County Railroad Preservation and Restoration Corporation (BCRP&RC) in 1990, who slowly began to rebuild the railroad to its current state of good repair. In 1993, the reporting mark was changed to NHRR. BCRP&RC is the official corporate structure, doing business as the New Hope Railroad. Reporting mark A reporting mark is a code used to identify owners or lessees of rolling stock and other equipment used on certain rail transport networks. The code typically reflects
494-409: The name or identifying number of the owner, lessee, or operator of the equipment, similar to IATA airline designators . 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 is used to uniquely identify every such rail car or locomotive, thus allowing it to be tracked by
520-572: 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
546-405: 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
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#1732779976222572-406: 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 , a subsidiary of
598-762: 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
624-820: 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
650-566: The trackage from the Steam Trains, Inc. in early 1974 to "preserve rail service through the center of Bucks County." The county selected McHugh Brothers Heavy Hauling, Inc. to operate freight service over the line via a lease agreement. McHugh Brothers continued hauling freight with Edward L. McHugh as president until his departure in 1989. By the summer of 1976, the railroad received state funding to rehabilitate crumbling infrastructure that sorely needed fixing. By August 1977, volunteers from
676-580: 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
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