rail shipment tracking

What to do when the railroad track & trace tools aren’t enough

You are feeling pain. Gaining visibility of your growing rail shipments on multiple railroads has become cumbersome. Reports that took 5 minutes to prepare are now taking an hour or more. Management wants more detailed (aka complicated and time consuming) reports because there is more at stake. Issues that once...

Track & Trace Railcar Shipments with ShipCSX

This article has been updated on 1/27/2017 to reflect the latest updates to ShipCSX CSX Transportation is one Class I railroad that provides web-based tools for rail shippers and receivers to track their shipments. They package their railcar tracking tools into what is called ShipCSX. You can plan a shipment, get...

Railcar Tracking Blog has a new name and new location

Railcar Tracking Blog (http://railcartracking.wordpress.com) , established in 2011, is a place where rail shippers, receivers, and railcar fleet owners can find helpful information related to tracking rail shipments and managing railcar fleets. The blog is sponsored by Railcar Tracking Company (RTC) and the articles were written by RTC with occasional input from other industry experts. The...

What features are commonly included in a rail shipment tracking and fleet management system?

Rail shipment tracking and fleet management systems are offered by several vendors, which offer many similar features. These systems lower administrative costs, improve supply chain performance and increase utilization of railcar fleets. This article summarizes those most common features and then also points out some less common features. Overall, I hope...

How a Rail Shipment Tracking System Can Save You Money

Having a single system that can track the locations of your rail shipments and/or railcar fleet across railroads is definitely more convenient, but does it really save you money? You may be struggling to quantify the cost benefit of a system like this. If so, please read on. Reduce Administrative...

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...

Usage Cap Established For Steelroads Users

Several colleagues of mine who have sponsored Steelroads* accounts told me that today an email was sent from Railinc (creator and owner or Steelroads) informing them that the railroad sponsor of their account (more on that later) has set a cap for a certain number of trace events (CLM –...

Appending waybill elements to rail shipment tracking CLM event data may not be cost effective

If you are getting CLM event data from one of the rail industry VANs (value added networks) and they offer an option to append elements from the waybill to each CLM event record, it may seem like a simple solution, but there are numerous problems to consider first. Problem 1:...

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