The CLIC system started in the early 1970s (1971 is the earliest I have found) and was called Car Location Inventory Control (Albuquerque) and Car Location and Inventory Control. This system was fed by individual punch cards for each car. The car punch cards were sorted and filed in the order the cars were on the individual tracks. If a clerk dropped a stack of cards - oh my - he/she would have to go and do a physical inventory of that track. That is what I observed here in Albuquerque in October, 1972.
By the 1980s or so the name on the CLICs was changed to Car Location Identity Codes. The card system had be replaced with ACI readers and a continuous computer monitoring of each car on the system. Of course when glitches occurred, out went the car clerks to do physical inventory of a track or tracks.
By the end of 1991 the CLIC was again changed and was called Car Location Inventory Control. Car readers were being supplemented or replaced with the passive transponders attached to each car.
Some of the early CLICs were drawn by the Engineering Department and some looked very good and were quite accurate. Then some also looked like stick drawings. When the CLIC books were contracted out the quality was standardized. You may note on some of your CLIC books that Engineering Services, Topeka or Engineering and Technology Development, Kansas City are at the bottom of some covers.
