# Railroaders: Little Messages on Freight Cars?
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703
**Category:** Factual Questions
**Created:** [March 11, 2004, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703 "2004-03-11T15:04:08Z")
**Posts on this page:** 4
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Jinx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jinx)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703/1 "2004-03-11T15:04:08Z")
I was watching a freight train go by the other day. I had a front-row seat as I was actually in parking lot built in the center of a railroad wye junction. A lot of
N-S freight passes here to go E-W, and vice versa.
Anyway, besides little stenciled remarked for maintenance, there were all kinds of, what I’d call, “idiot-proof” messages. Like:
a) Close and latch doors before moving - on a box car
b) Hammering will contaminate product - on a closed hopper car carrying a powder
c) Return to Southern when empty (I had to LOL at that one! Like a milk crate?)
d) Fasten containers before shipping - on a flat bed car
e) A CSX Quality Car - on a coal car (What “quality”? A coal car is a coal car, no?)
When did such messages begin to appear on freight cars? I WAG it must because there was once a passenger car full of lawyers chasing after it, mostly…?
- Jinx
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### Author:  [@Philster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Philster)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703/2 "2004-03-11T17:21:34Z")
C) yes, like expensive milk crates. Cars are leased, borrowed and tracked.
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### Author:  [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703/3 "2004-03-11T17:55:01Z")
I doubt these messages are as recent an innovation as the OP suggests - railways have always been dangerous places, so there’s always been a concientiousness about safety that seems astonishing when viewed from the outside. For example, ever since the very first railways built outside of private lines in England, there has always been a legal obligation on the railway company to keep lineside fences in order to stop the public ‘straying’ onto the tracks.
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### Author:  [@gotpasswords](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gotpasswords)
#### Post date: [March 11, 2004, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/railroaders-little-messages-on-freight-cars/233703/4 "2004-03-11T23:59:26Z")
A CSX Quality Car
That’s just plain ol’ advertising.