oltmannd Murphy Siding BaltACD Murphy Siding Our car showed up yesterday afternoon. As of this mornig, the website still shows it about 110 miles away. Do you know if the web site you are accessing is updated in real time or on a batch basis? If it is real time - you experience shows it is not. If it is a batch update, your placing report missed the cutoff for the batch you are looking at. I think you solved my mystery. I figured that the technolgy would allow it to be reported in real time. It probably does- to the railroad where it's nice to know things like that in real time. I'd imagine that the customer portal is onky updated once a day. Oh, my. That's really dumb. It should be hitting the live car inventory data. It exists and is shared with the AAR-Railinc. For line of road movements, the data is near real time. AEI scanners are generally used to verify consists and occasionally do location arrival and departure messages. Often the arrivals and departures can come from the train arrival and departure which more often than not these days, can come from locomotive GPS with geo-fencing. So, that data is pretty accurate. When a local goes out on the road, things get a bit iffier. If the RR uses a hand held reporting device, it's possible that the crew can report placements and pulls in near real time. Sometimes, they will kinda save'em all up and do them once back at their yard. In the paper days, the crew would fax them in when they tie up and a yard clerk would type them all in - so their could be a sizeable delay (and lots more errors) I can't believe that BNSF does not have a near real time web portal for customers to track their pipeline. NS has had one for nearly 20 years. (ex-Conrail guys were responsible for putting the data up and building the portal. Both of us are retired, now.)
Murphy Siding BaltACD Murphy Siding Our car showed up yesterday afternoon. As of this mornig, the website still shows it about 110 miles away. Do you know if the web site you are accessing is updated in real time or on a batch basis? If it is real time - you experience shows it is not. If it is a batch update, your placing report missed the cutoff for the batch you are looking at. I think you solved my mystery. I figured that the technolgy would allow it to be reported in real time. It probably does- to the railroad where it's nice to know things like that in real time. I'd imagine that the customer portal is onky updated once a day.
BaltACD Murphy Siding Our car showed up yesterday afternoon. As of this mornig, the website still shows it about 110 miles away. Do you know if the web site you are accessing is updated in real time or on a batch basis? If it is real time - you experience shows it is not. If it is a batch update, your placing report missed the cutoff for the batch you are looking at.
Murphy Siding Our car showed up yesterday afternoon. As of this mornig, the website still shows it about 110 miles away.
Do you know if the web site you are accessing is updated in real time or on a batch basis?
If it is real time - you experience shows it is not. If it is a batch update, your placing report missed the cutoff for the batch you are looking at.
I think you solved my mystery. I figured that the technolgy would allow it to be reported in real time. It probably does- to the railroad where it's nice to know things like that in real time. I'd imagine that the customer portal is onky updated once a day.
Oh, my. That's really dumb. It should be hitting the live car inventory data. It exists and is shared with the AAR-Railinc.
For line of road movements, the data is near real time. AEI scanners are generally used to verify consists and occasionally do location arrival and departure messages. Often the arrivals and departures can come from the train arrival and departure which more often than not these days, can come from locomotive GPS with geo-fencing. So, that data is pretty accurate.
When a local goes out on the road, things get a bit iffier. If the RR uses a hand held reporting device, it's possible that the crew can report placements and pulls in near real time. Sometimes, they will kinda save'em all up and do them once back at their yard. In the paper days, the crew would fax them in when they tie up and a yard clerk would type them all in - so their could be a sizeable delay (and lots more errors)
I can't believe that BNSF does not have a near real time web portal for customers to track their pipeline. NS has had one for nearly 20 years. (ex-Conrail guys were responsible for putting the data up and building the portal. Both of us are retired, now.)
You get what you pay for. Free access will be less timely than paid access. Carriers reserve real time access to those that, one way or another, pay for the PRIVLEDGE.
Railinc is not a free service of the AAR.
Never too old to have a happy childhood!
BaltACD York1 I have no connection with railroads, so my question is from the outside. Could knowing a car's location cause any security concerns? Is anything ever shipped that a terrorist group may want to know about, or where it is? MOST military shipemts are handled using DODX freight cars (DOD = Department of Defense). I don't know what specific actions are taken concerning DODX cars, that being said, I suspect they are not reported to the general 'customer viewable' data bases. I suspect DODX tracing is limited to internal railroad personnel and to the appropriate offices of the military. The reporting Murphy Siding is seeing is nominally delayed sufficiently that it will be of little to no value in trying to plan a real time terrorist issue with any car(s). Customers that deal in HAZMAT are well known - what security actions those shipper/consignees are taking as well as the railroad security actions are not publicized.
York1 I have no connection with railroads, so my question is from the outside. Could knowing a car's location cause any security concerns? Is anything ever shipped that a terrorist group may want to know about, or where it is?
Could knowing a car's location cause any security concerns? Is anything ever shipped that a terrorist group may want to know about, or where it is?
MOST military shipemts are handled using DODX freight cars (DOD = Department of Defense). I don't know what specific actions are taken concerning DODX cars, that being said, I suspect they are not reported to the general 'customer viewable' data bases. I suspect DODX tracing is limited to internal railroad personnel and to the appropriate offices of the military.
The reporting Murphy Siding is seeing is nominally delayed sufficiently that it will be of little to no value in trying to plan a real time terrorist issue with any car(s).
Customers that deal in HAZMAT are well known - what security actions those shipper/consignees are taking as well as the railroad security actions are not publicized.
Thanks for the info, Balt!
York1 John
The way the tracing systems work; you must be a party to the waybill to obtain info either from the various railroad systems or those provided by third parties.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
York1I have no connection with railroads, so my question is from the outside. Could knowing a car's location cause any security concerns? Is anything ever shipped that a terrorist group may want to know about, or where it is?
I have no connection with railroads, so my question is from the outside.
In a sensibly-designed query system -- which this might well not be -- the car-location information would be fetched from current information 'on demand' at or near the time the customer makes the request. But where the information is fetched from then becomes the situation.
Security concerns alone indicate the 'customer-accessible' information will be in some kind of data warehouse, perhaps periodically batch-updated from a potential variety of sources. The changes must be made coherently in what corresponds to a 'batch transaction', fully completed and tested before any 'old' values are swapped out. Under PSR one of the first 'economies' I can see being made in personnel are clerks updating the customer-convenience tracking portal feature... so there may be some latency in the periodic updates to the data-warehouse 'storage'.
We certainly have some measure of this in the reported incidence, where it's pretty clear that neither the AEI data nor any kind of delivery report is being put into data ... wel, perhaps even on a 'daily' basis like a bank deposit post. Even net of customer security or corporate competition-driven secrecy, this seems more than a little extreme.
Thanks to Chris / CopCarSS for my avatar.
Quick, unload it before they figure out you have it!
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
Our car showed up yesterday afternoon. As of this mornig, the website still shows it about 110 miles away.
GERALD L MCFARLANE JR Murphy Siding tree68 Murphy Siding The part I can't get my head around is that it seems BNSF should have the software in place that updates location of a car when it passes a checkpoint. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Last year we had a car from Washington that forgot to turn left at Omaha. We were able to follow it through every checkpoint in Iowa until it decided to head our way again. It all depends on where the AEI readers are. Aren't they on both sides of the cars? It's not the AEI tag on the car, it's the location of the AEI Readers along the right of way, they don't put them every 10 miles, only were it makes sense both economically and for ease of maintenace from the RR's point of view.
Murphy Siding tree68 Murphy Siding The part I can't get my head around is that it seems BNSF should have the software in place that updates location of a car when it passes a checkpoint. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Last year we had a car from Washington that forgot to turn left at Omaha. We were able to follow it through every checkpoint in Iowa until it decided to head our way again. It all depends on where the AEI readers are. Aren't they on both sides of the cars?
tree68
Murphy Siding The part I can't get my head around is that it seems BNSF should have the software in place that updates location of a car when it passes a checkpoint. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Last year we had a car from Washington that forgot to turn left at Omaha. We were able to follow it through every checkpoint in Iowa until it decided to head our way again. It all depends on where the AEI readers are. Aren't they on both sides of the cars?
Murphy Siding The part I can't get my head around is that it seems BNSF should have the software in place that updates location of a car when it passes a checkpoint. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Last year we had a car from Washington that forgot to turn left at Omaha. We were able to follow it through every checkpoint in Iowa until it decided to head our way again.
It all depends on where the AEI readers are.
It's not the AEI tag on the car, it's the location of the AEI Readers along the right of way, they don't put them every 10 miles, only were it makes sense both economically and for ease of maintenace from the RR's point of view.
tree68 https://s3.amazonaws.com/zcom-media/sites/a0iE000000P2bZ7IAJ/media/mediamanager/AIE_Scene_1.jpg https://www.railway-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/static-progressive/nri/railway/clients/ABDT/ld.jpg Try one of these - should take you directly to the image, no Google .involved.
https://s3.amazonaws.com/zcom-media/sites/a0iE000000P2bZ7IAJ/media/mediamanager/AIE_Scene_1.jpg
https://www.railway-technology.com/wp-content/uploads/static-progressive/nri/railway/clients/ABDT/ld.jpg
Try one of these - should take you directly to the image, no Google .involved.
Worked! Thanx Larry.
York1 I use Chrome and I'm signed into Google, and I can't see the image.
I use Chrome and I'm signed into Google, and I can't see the image.
Ditto.
GERALD L MCFARLANE JR It's not the AEI tag on the car, it's the location of the AEI Readers along the right of way, they don't put them every 10 miles, only were it makes sense both economically and for ease of maintenace from the RR's point of view.
CN has AEI readers at or near the entrances to each yard or terminal, often several miles out. On my territory a train will travel at most 130 miles between readers, and some subdivisions have them located at strategic points enroute.
Some large customers have their own AEI readers at their plant sites.
Greetings from Alberta
-an Articulate Malcontent
Try one of these - should take you directly to the image, no Google involved.
Larry Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date Come ride the rails with me! There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...
Can't see anything in Firefox on my PC.
Using Chrome (not signed in) on my Android phone, I only see a little error square.
I saw it earlier but can't see it now.
Brian (IA) http://blhanel.rrpicturearchives.net.
Semper Vaporo@ Tree... your image didn't show up... something about a Google "forbidden folder"... I make the assumption you have the image stored on a Google server, but it is not open to access to anybody but you.
I use Chrome (which is a Google product) as my browser and the picture comes through find, I haven't tried with Edge or Firefox.
@ Tree... your image didn't show up... something about a Google "forbidden folder"... I make the assumption you have the image stored on a Google server, but it is not open to access to anybody but you.
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
This is an example of a reader:
CShaveRRThere are AEI tags on both sides of the cars (lack of a tag will show on the generated report). The readers are in what might be considered strategic locations for the railroad in question.
On CSX, both sides are read. When one or both sides don't read, reports are sent to the Car Dept. so the matter can be taken care of at the earliest opportunity.
There are AEI tags on both sides of the cars (lack of a tag will show on the generated report). The readers are in what might be considered strategic locations for the railroad in question.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
tree68 Murphy Siding The part I can't get my head around is that it seems BNSF should have the software in place that updates location of a car when it passes a checkpoint. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Last year we had a car from Washington that forgot to turn left at Omaha. We were able to follow it through every checkpoint in Iowa until it decided to head our way again. It all depends on where the AEI readers are.
jeffhergert From Murphy's first post, I don't think it's the routing. He said they watched it go past their facility YESTERDAY and it shows in tracing as at Waverly, NE TODAY. I believe Waverly is just outside of the yard complex at Lincoln. Murphy, did they spot your car like you thought? I looked at a view of Harrisburg SD and it looks like your industry needs to be worked by a northbound train. If you saw the car go south, maybe they didn't set it out and took it all the way to Lincoln. (Buffett said they were looking at some of parts of PSR to possibly implement. Maybe they're trying out the enhanced customer service portion on you. ) Jeff
From Murphy's first post, I don't think it's the routing. He said they watched it go past their facility YESTERDAY and it shows in tracing as at Waverly, NE TODAY. I believe Waverly is just outside of the yard complex at Lincoln.
Murphy, did they spot your car like you thought? I looked at a view of Harrisburg SD and it looks like your industry needs to be worked by a northbound train. If you saw the car go south, maybe they didn't set it out and took it all the way to Lincoln. (Buffett said they were looking at some of parts of PSR to possibly implement. Maybe they're trying out the enhanced customer service portion on you. )
Jeff
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