[Note to moderators- this thread is not about locomotives, transit, passenger trains or model railroading. Please don't move it. Thank you.] Do the railroads have a master computer sytem that can tell them in an instant where CSX locomotive 5324, or BNSF car 86753 for example, is-or at least is supposed to be- at any given time?
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Part of this is surely UMLER. Another part is that some modern locomotives have 'telemetry' tracking that in part follows where they are (and how fast they are moving, etc.) with GPS data. Some companies -- Olin is one -- have special enablement on hazmat cars which allows them to be 'interrogated' for their location, and their onboard cameras turned on or data from them downloaded.
Murphy,
No. Each carrier has a computer that keeps track of all cars and locomotives on its lines. Customers can track cars on each railroad, but record on railroad A ends when car is interchanged to railroad B.
The AAR operates RAILINC which provides certain services on an industry basis. One that I know of is the data about rail cars formerly printed in the Official Railway Equipment Register, that is car dimensional data, in a program called UMLER. I suspect RAILINC also is the keeper of default car hire rates. I recall that RAILINC also handles all interchange transactions between carriers. I would not be surprised to find that RAILINC also tracks foreign power to provide data for settlement of horsepower hour claims. To the best of my knowledge all of this "back office" stuff is inaccessible to the customers and the general public.
Mac
RAILINC is the overall data base for all interchange transactions between carriers - interchange transactions include both cars and locomotives. Part of the UMLER record for each piece of equipment is the data about its car hire costs.
RAILINC offers tracking services to railroad customers for the tracking and management of the customers car fleets (both private and railroad assigned).
When it comes to tracking Horsepower Hours between carriers, RAILINC is of limited value as it doesn't know whose account a locomotive is in when it is interchanged between carriers. ie. a NS locomotive on CSX may be in the BNSF account for foreign power - these situations are not infrequent and can only be resolved in each carriers own accounting of horsepower hours.
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So, if BNSF needs more covered hoppers in an area, presumably there is a way for them to check the whereabouts of the closest ones that are currently idle?
Murphy Siding So, if BNSF needs more covered hoppers in an area, presumably there is a way for them to check the whereabouts of the closest ones that are currently idle?
BNSF will know the whereabouts of their own car fleet on their own line and what is idle and what is in use. If they need more than their own car fleet, they can ASK other carriers for short term lease of their excess cars if any. Otherwise they must go to the car leasing business' for the lease of additional cars.
BaltACDBNSF will know the whereabouts of their own car fleet on their own line and what is idle and what is in use. If they need more than their own car fleet, they can ASK other carriers for short term lease of their excess cars if any. Otherwise they must go to the car leasing business' for the lease of additional cars.
Which throws a twist I'd never thought of into the idea of a railroad sending a foreign road's car back loaded vs empty. Of course, the amount of loose car railroading certainly isn't at the same level as it was when I first heard of it.
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tree68 BaltACD Which throws a twist I'd never thought of into the idea of a railroad sending a foreign road's car back loaded vs empty. Of course, the amount of loose car railroading certainly isn't at the same level as it was when I first heard of it.
BaltACD
Cars in assigned service will go back to the shipper empty. Cars not in assigned service can be loaded after being made empty and routed back to the owning carrier under load, if no load is available the car will go back to the owning carrier empty.
There are formal agreements in place for cars which are in assigned service and it will be so noted on the billing documents for the car.
Suppose, for example, a BNSF boxcar,runs 1000 miles on BNSF rails, then runs the last 200 miles to it's destination on NS rails. Does NS charge BNSF for hauling the empty car back to BNSF interchange?
Murphy Siding Suppose, for example, a BNSF boxcar,runs 1000 miles on BNSF rails, then runs the last 200 miles to it's destination on NS rails. Does NS charge BNSF for hauling the empty car back to BNSF interchange?
There is no 'charge' for hauling foreign line cars, unless they are newly manufactured cars moving from the car builder to the owning carrier which are moved on waybilled freight charges on a per mile rate. All carriers normally have cars from nearly all the other carriers on their lines at any point in time.
Foreign line cars accrue 'per diem' charges payable to the owning carrier while the car is on the foreign carrier's line. Each car on the railroads has a hourly 'per diem' amount that is payable to the car owner for every hour the car is on other than the owners line. (note-until the early 70's per diem was a daily charge and was payable by which carrier posessed the car at midnight of a calendar day - in the 70's the charge was changed to hourly - all charges are assessed based upon the interchange records between carriers)
Private cars (initials ending in X) are not subject to per diem payments, however they are subject to defined mileage payments for all the miles they are operated on a given carrier. RAILINC gets involved in the calculation of mileage of private cars as they have the records to support all the point to point movments for private cars within the gateways for each carrier; additionally Private Owners are not railroads and thus RAILINC is their 'go to' data source.
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