I booked a flight to pick up a new vehicle that is supposed to arrive at the dealer this week. The car is currently on a rail car, enroute from Canada. I have the rail car number - is there a way to track the rail car?
Tracking a Rail Car
- Thread starter The Critic
- Start date
Found this on Bronco Nation. Worth a try.
Copied from an older post:
If you are going by rail, it’s more complicated…
First you will need the rail car letters and numbers. It is on the visibility report or DORA which is from the dealership. You MAY be able to get it from the SVT people but they seem often in a cranky mood and may tell you to get it from the dealer.
There are two major rail companies.
CSX is everything east of the mississippi
UP is everything west of the mississippi
But they all start out on CSX so once they have it in their system they will follow it all the way.
So, how do you track your truck on a railcar?
First and most important. Never talk to live personnel at the railroad! Only use automated phone system. If it attempts to transfer you to a live person please hang up. The railcar information we are provided by is given as a courtesy and if we call live personnel we may lose the access and ability to track.
CSX
1. Call the CSX 1-800-235-2352
2. When prompted for location or weight, press "1" on your phone for location.
3. When prompted for the car initials, say CN (or whatever initials you have) then wait for the next prompt.
4. When prompted for the car number, say 907048 (or whatever your number is)
5. When prompted for next car say DONE.
6. That's it; enjoy your updated status report.
Union Pacific
1. Call UP at 1 800 877-5123 1 800 877-5123
2. Follow phone prompts for Trace
3. Say the railcar number complete and clearly. Example CN123456 all together
4. Listen for your update
NS Norfolk Southern
1. Call 800-635-5768
2. Press 2.
3. Press 2.
4. Enter the letters on the numeric keypad then press #. As in: TTGX will be 8849
5. Enter the numbers then press #. It wasn't taking my voice prompts but typing worked. "
Copied from an older post:
If you are going by rail, it’s more complicated…
First you will need the rail car letters and numbers. It is on the visibility report or DORA which is from the dealership. You MAY be able to get it from the SVT people but they seem often in a cranky mood and may tell you to get it from the dealer.
There are two major rail companies.
CSX is everything east of the mississippi
UP is everything west of the mississippi
But they all start out on CSX so once they have it in their system they will follow it all the way.
So, how do you track your truck on a railcar?
First and most important. Never talk to live personnel at the railroad! Only use automated phone system. If it attempts to transfer you to a live person please hang up. The railcar information we are provided by is given as a courtesy and if we call live personnel we may lose the access and ability to track.
CSX
1. Call the CSX 1-800-235-2352
2. When prompted for location or weight, press "1" on your phone for location.
3. When prompted for the car initials, say CN (or whatever initials you have) then wait for the next prompt.
4. When prompted for the car number, say 907048 (or whatever your number is)
5. When prompted for next car say DONE.
6. That's it; enjoy your updated status report.
Union Pacific
1. Call UP at 1 800 877-5123 1 800 877-5123
2. Follow phone prompts for Trace
3. Say the railcar number complete and clearly. Example CN123456 all together
4. Listen for your update
NS Norfolk Southern
1. Call 800-635-5768
2. Press 2.
3. Press 2.
4. Enter the letters on the numeric keypad then press #. As in: TTGX will be 8849
5. Enter the numbers then press #. It wasn't taking my voice prompts but typing worked. "
Train companies don't always publish their schedules. If you find one thectimes can vary significantly.
If the train originates in eastern Canada it makes the choice of trains interesting. Typically it would be CN ( Canadian National) or CPKS ( Canadian Pacific Kansas City). Once it crossed the border it would for sure go through Chicago then either through Kansas City or Omaha. I find locomotives from all sorts of train companies will do cross border trips.
Last edited:
Calling the tracking number won't reveal a schedule, but it'll tell you where the car your vehicle is loaded on is, or tell you if it's still at one of the various "mixing centers" they use to sort automotive traffic.
It used to be possible to track rail cars (by number) by calling up the railroads with an automated service. At the time, anyone could track a location without a login. It was certainly doable for standardized containers traveling by rail, but those were easy to scan. I'd hope they would have progressed beyond that. However, at the time the last listed location was usually only where it had gone through a railyard where the code got scanned.
I'm involved in shipping (receiving, actually) ocean containers from Europe into the US. Once they arrive at the ocean port and get loaded onto rail, we call that the "black hole". I got the impression that, for "security" reasons, the rail companies made it hard to access. Even the shipper themselves typically just say "it's moving by rail with an ETA to Cincinnati of XXX". Trains move and stop when the crew wants to, it seems, then stops and might sleep waiting for a relief crew, then get stuck longer than normal at a location, and so on. It gets there when it gets there....
It's not that hard to scan containers, chassis, railcars, etc. Apparently these days they use RFID.
The What, How, and Why of Railcar Tracking | VIZION | VIZION
Railcar tracking is crucial to any successful intermodal strategy. Learn how true end-to-end viability of rail freight gives shippers a complete picture.
www.vizionapi.com
I hope by now there's a need to know basis for accessing tracking information.
Toyota's tracker shows Canadian Pacific Railway.
Last edited:
