Hello all,

I recently was bit by the KarTrak bug and I wanted to know if you guys could answer some questions I had about them.

1. Per ICRR's page on ACI: "For locomotives, line 6 is the type of unit and line 7 the suffix number." How was this determined? What numbers were assigned to what unit, and what were the suffixes? Like S for switcher would be, for example 4? I have not found any documentation on this specifically.

2. Regarding the scanners themseves, is there anywhere you guys could direct me for the dimenstions of them? I want to make a of one in Blender to make a 3D print with. I know, if im not mistaken, anderson made one but I'd rather just print it myself. I tried looking up the patents, but I dont think I found the right patent number.


Thanks in advance for anything you can point for for me

I can provide an answer for question 1. See the attached images for the locomotive coding format for modules 6 and 7. Note that the use of these codes was optional so it would vary by railroad whether they were actually used or not.

This so helpful! I'm guessing this came from the official ACI handbook, what a jem!

Thanks!

Also, see here;

http://www.nakina.net/other/aci/aci.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KarTrak

There is a good (Peter Dibble) YouTube video about the history and details of KarTrak.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5K8UpMNYIPo

Something to note that's not always seen: ACI tags were kept going until the late 90's by many coal mines for tracking coal car fleets. That's why you still see them on numerous coal cars built well after the ACI era.