In 1967, using then-cutting edge technology, the identity of North America's rail equipment was each reduced to a number (because each railroad had its own number, replacing reporting marks.) Automatic Car Identification (ACI) was a bar code system used to track the huge quantity of cars and locomotives wandering around the United States, Canada and Mexico. Against a black rectangular background, color-coded reflective strips were applied and could be read by trackside scanners, which fed the data to the various railroads' computer systems. The system lasted from 1967 to 1978. The system worked well ... Until the cars got so dirty the reflective strips were too difficult to read by the scanners. Today, of course, this same idea is carried out by Automatic Car Identification (AEI), which utilizes chip bolted in a protective cover to the sides of locomotives and cars. AEI works extremely well, but doesn't add the little bit of color that ACI tags had. This ACI tag is on retired Amtrak coach 5232 (ex-ATSF 3160, built by Budd in 1946). To understand more about ACI, click HERE.
