ACI Labels

Hi all,

One of the characteristic features of Penn Central era rolling stock was Automatic Car Identification (ACI) labels.  I was aware that these multi-colored striped plaques were applied to locomotives and freight cars during the late 1960s /early 1970s but really didn't know much about them other than that they were intended to be part of a computerized system for keeping track of rolling stock...and that they made neat details on my HO equipment!

Very few of my freight cars and locos came with factory applied ACI labels.   I occasionally added some when the whim hit me during a project when I happened to have some ACI decals included on  Microscale decal sheets of freight car information or NYC/PC caboose lettering, but most of my equipment remained without these clear indicators of my layout's era. 

As I recently mentioned in a previous post, I decided to paint my second Atlas RSD12 as a Penn Central unit to match its twin sister.  After completing the painting, all of that black made me think that adding the ACI labels to these two units would make an eye catching feature.

After finishing off the pair of RSD12s, I still had several ACI labels left on some NYC/PC caboose decal sheets so I decided to go on bit of a decaling spree.   I added ACI labels to 14 Penn Central units on my roster.

Some of those now sporting the striped plaques include:

Old Athearn F7A,  F7B, and SD9

Bachmann GP40

Atlas Yellow Box  FP7s and GP38

Athearn GP38-2

That's not all of them but you get the idea!  I used prototype photos and Microscale's informational sheets to help decide where to locate the ACI labels on each locomotive.

I did some research about ACI labels and learned that in the 1960s there were several companies working on computerized automatic tracking of cars.   According to this Wiki article  (below) that seems to be corroborated by other sources I've found, four car tracking systems were tested on the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1967.   Of the four General Telephone and Electronics "KarTrak" system was chosen to be the best.   
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KarTrak

I hadn't come across the KarTrak name before but this appears to be the ACI system with the multi-colored bars we see during the Penn Central era.

I found a site that explains the functions of each stripe on the KarTrak labels.
http://www.nakina.net/other/aci/aci.html

I have dozens of freight cars that  I'd like to add ACI labels to.  So far I've only found ACI labels on the above mentioned freight car data and NYC/PC caboose decal sheets.   I was wishing that Microscale offered a sheet of just these little labels but then recently discovered that they DO!  See below.

http://www.microscale.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=MC-4280&Store_Code=MD&search=ACI&offset=&filter_cat=&PowerSearch_Begin_Only=&sort=&range_low=&range_high=

That's 160 labels on one sheet...enough for 80 pieces of rolling stock!  A little decal shopping and I'll have plenty of supplies for a long term project!   I can imagine applying a few an evening.   I'm making it one of my hobby resolutions for 2017 to add ACI labels to as much of my equipment as possible.   ACI plates nicely reinforce a sense of time period on the model railroad.

Thanks for reading!