It was missing parenthesis on the values...this worked.

USE [SSSUTIL]
GO

INSERT INTO [dbo].[RailCarCycleYard]
           ([RailcarID]
     ...

my bad..here is the insert again.

I though I was qualifying the field name by prefixing it with the table , I originally tried an alias but that gave me a...

Here you go...sorry about this Im a bit green (but learning)

USE [SSSUTIL]
GO

INSERT INTO [dbo].[RailCarCycleYard]
           ([RailcarID]
  ...

Hope this helps....

Here is the insert I was trying

Insert into  [RailCarCycle] ([Railcarid],[StartDate])
select    [RailCarid],[LoadDate]
from [RailCarCycleYard]
 where  [RailCarCycle].[Railcarid] = [RailCarCycleyard].[Railcarid] and [RailCarCycle].[EndDate] is not...

I looked at you example of how to post a question.........I've provided the code sample that I'm using , I added an image of the table.  I've described my scenario...

Im using a subquery NOT EXISTS but this only stops duplicates

Insert into  [RailCarCycle] ([Railcarid],[StartDate])
select    [RailCarid],[LoadDate]
from [RailCarCycleYard]

 where not exists( select NULL from [RailCarCycle]...

Great !!!  that did the trick 🙂
Thanks so much