Railcar Tracking Learning Center

This learning center provides useful information for the rail shipper and/or railcar fleet owner related to the tracking of rail shipments and management of railcar fleets. There are occasional news notices from Railcar Tracking Co. as well as How To articles that demonstrate how to automate certain rail shipment tracking and railcar fleet management activities.

Railcar Tracking Company joins Savage Services Corporation

Holladay, UT Effective November 1, 2013, Savage Services Corporation acquired the assets and personnel of Railcar Tracking Company (RTC). Savage has applied for and received authorization to do business as (dba) Railcar Tracking Company, so RTC will continue to operate very much the way it always has, but with much...

Railcar Management System (RMS) Version 6 Released

St. Louis, Missouri (11/1/2013) Railcar Tracking Company announces the release of Railcar Management System (RMS) Version 6. RMS Version 6 is web-based and offers configurable user access making it attractive to small / midsize rail shippers as well as for large enterprise use. New features and enhancements make V.6 easy to use. Here's...

How much does a railcar tracking system cost?

This is a very common question. The answer is a difficult one because it depends on a number of variables. This article will introduce some key questions that will help you determine how much a system will cost. If you like to be an informed buyer or are thinking about...

Car Location Message (CLM) Event Sighting Codes

Code Classification Description A Arrival Transit Location Equipment has arrived at an in-transit railroad location other than the destination. B Bad Order Equipment has been reported or received defective at location shown. See this article for extended bad order information. C Motor Carrier Arrival Motor carrier arrival at initial...

Demurrage charges – trust, but verify

The results were surprising to them: they found $14,000.00 of inaccuracies in one month. Full disclosure: This shipper is one of our customers and they did solve their problem with our product. All the same, I think their experience will be a valuable one to you regardless of whether you...

Getting full visibility of railcar shipments in Steelroads

If you are getting incomplete CLM (aka car location messages or sightings) data for some of your shipments and you use Steelroads*, here are some ideas that will help you increase your visibility. 1. All CLM data delivered out of Steelroads is now restricted to “Party to Waybill” (PTW) security....

Optimizing railcar fleets by reducing excess detention

Cost increases coming soon for rail shipment tracking data?

Most Class I railroads have a practice of providing shipment tracking data such as CLM (car location messages) and waybills (EDI 417 format) to those directly involved in rail shipping for no charge. The practice of doing the same for third parties (VANs – value added networks, on-demand software vendors)...

Railcar Repair: Save $600 Or More Annually By Reading This Article

Starting January 1, 2012, Railinc will begin charging $600 annually for the PDF print out of [rail]car repair billing charges (CRBX Data Exchange) to billed parties. The charge is actually per each profile ID, so if your company has multiple IDs, you will see multiple $600 charges. Plus, third party...

The misunderstood Train ID field

Actually, if it were understood better, we would realize that this little field is actually providing some pretty rich information. Most Car Location Message (CLM) formats contain a Train ID field. This field returns several very different types of information depending on the situation. Frustrating and difficult to implement in...

Simple Railcar Fleet Sizing

There are more complex and more accurate ways to size your railcar fleet, but here is a simple way that even the most modest thinker (me) can understand. Before you use this, be sure to test it in a small situation to be sure that it works for your particular...

Get electronic waybills from railroads for railcar tracking

Electronic waybills are delivered in a file and the information is formatted in a standard way enabling computer systems to automatically import them. Coupling sighting (CLM) data with waybill data (aka shipping instructions) can be a powerful combination. For example, not only will you know where your railcars are and...

Rail Users’ Manual

The Rail User’ Manual available from The National Industrial Transportation League (NITL) contains some basic, important, timeless, and valuable information relating to railroad railcar tracking that you may not be able to find consolidated anywhere else. The information in the manual could be more timely since the latest version that...

Railroad Demurrage Basics

Private Car Storage versus Demurrage Most railroads use the term Demurrage when describing the charges for privately owned railcars sitting on railroad property too long and the charges for using railroad owned railcars too long (during loading or unloading). A few railroads use the term Private Car Storage for charges...

Getting full visibility of rail shipments

There may be situations where you want to see certain rail shipments (either in a railroad provided, third party, or in-house rail shipment tracking system), but your company is not “party to the waybill”. If you are running into this problem. Here are some options to consider. 1. You can...