ReportingMark

Declares that a railroad exists. Packs contribute marks additively — declaring one asserts the road rather than claiming ownership of it, so several packs can each add roads and all of them show up. A declared road is put into interchange traffic and becomes eligible to letter cars automatically; an undeclared mark still works if a player charters it or renames a car by hand.

• Kind: ReportingMark
• Extends: ObjectDefinition

Fields

carTypes

string = null

Car type filter (see Car Type Filters) restricting which car types this road letters, e.g. "T*" or "XM,F*". When absent, the road letters any car type.

mark

string

The mark as lettered on the car, e.g. "SOU" or "ATSF". It is a field rather than the definition’s identifier so that it can carry characters an identifier can’t.

Use the road’s AAR reporting mark, which is two to four letters with no punctuation — NW, not N&W; ATSF, not AT&SF. The ampersand forms are painted lettering, not marks, and a road that declares both ends up competing with itself for the same cars. A handful of roads did register a mark containing an ampersand, so it is permitted, but reach for it only when the prototype actually did.

Example

{
  "identifier": "acme/mark.shpx",
  "metadata": { "name": "Shippers Car Line" },
  "definition": {
    "kind": "ReportingMark",
    "mark": "SHPX",
    "carTypes": "T*"
  }
}

The road’s display name comes from metadata.name.

carTypes exists because most rolling stock is owned by the railroad that runs it, but tank cars are the prototypical exception — in the era Railroader depicts, few railroads owned their own tank cars, and the fleet was overwhelmingly private lines like UTLX, GATX, and SHPX. A tank car line should declare carTypes: "T*" so it’s never drawn to letter a boxcar; a general-purpose railroad usually omits carTypes entirely.

carTypes only limits which cars a road is drawn to letter automatically — see Car Spawn Identity for how that draw works. A player can still charter any declared mark and repaint any car by hand, regardless of carTypes.