Question About Basic Freight Operations

Aaron:

There are basically two ways; one, the shipper or a shipper's proxy transmits an electronic waybill (called a 404) to the railroad.  Alternatively, a shipper may log onto the railroad's website using a secure user id and password and create a waybill using a pattern that has been stored on the railroad's system.  All of the Class 1 railroads pretty much frown on submission of paper bills of lading and will charge a shipper using that method a penalty.

Regardless of how the waybill is being created, the railroad will gather the waybilling information and assign the pickup to the local that serves the industry.  Most, if not all, of the Class 1 railroads now provide laptops to their local conductors.  When a local job goes on duty, the conductor will download all of their pulls and spots and begin to organize the work.  The railroads will ordinarily establish a time deadline by which waybilling must be submitted in order to process the information internally and get it to the local crew before they actually depart their home terminal.

As background, a waybill is the document that provides the railroad with the name of the shipper, origin, destination, consignee, car initial and number, weight and description of the product along with appropriate hazmat information if necessary.  The waybill also specifies the route the car will follow along with the proper junctions between carriers.  It also indicates who will be responsible for the freight.

I hope this helps.  If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to post them to this thread.  I have been in industrial transportation and rail logistics for going on 34 years now.

Curt

Curt-How would it have been done in the past, especially for a shipper who had his own siding?  Would they have called or telegraphed the information to the nearest agent, or would they have made pick up arrangements at the time they arranged to have the car dropped off?

Bill:

If they were only an occasional shipper, they would have called the local agent.  A shipper that was receiving or releasing cars daily would have prepared a bill of lading and simply handed it to the crew.  If the local came into the plant site at irregular times, the shipper might do what my employer did at one of our sites in Mississippi.  We set a mail box alongside the lead coming into the plant and the loading foreman would put his bills of lading and empty pull requests in that for retrieval by the crew when they came in.

Curt

This is really helpful, thanks!

A couple more questions:

-Where do EOTD's go once a train arrives at a yard to be sorted?

-What are some restrictions that can prevent freight cars from going over the hump?

Thanks,

Aaron

Thanks Curt.

Norfolk Southern uses the R.I.T. box (conductor carries a pack mounted computer) plus CYO (Central Yard Operations) .

 Basically the conductor does the former yard clerks job of moving and billing the car(s) from the yard to the customer and then reverse method when picking up bringing car(s) back to the yard.

 Then CYO handles the rest as far as waybills of customers car(s) enroute back and fourth that details the charges,estimates the eta's and enables the customer and the railroad the ability to use the bar scanners located on each car where that particular car is located on their system.

   The customer has access to NS's mainframe to track their car.

 The R.I.T. is linked up via. cellphone service.The conductor has to show the car en-route and delivered or departed.

This is an interesting topic.  Are there any good books on the subject that anyone here would recommend?

  Another thing in the last 15-18 years that technology has done away with is hand weighing cars in smaller yards on the NS,and the use of waybills from the coal mines.

 I can remember spotting individual cars on scales in Kenova,WV and hand punching the weigh card,and that was what the customer was billed on.

 And the weigh in motion scales at Prichard,WV use to be manned 3 shifts with a scale clerk.You would slow down to no more than 5-8 mph.,throw the weigh bills off to the clerk (and yes you would have one for every car,sometimes over 200) and weigh the train.You would have to watch lunar lights to keep your speed in check.If you started to get too fast they would start blinking.The faster you got the faster they blinked,then they would go out when the scales would quit.

 Now you don't have weigh bills,you listen to an animated voice that tells you when the scales are ready,your speed,then when you clear the scales.

 All the weights are sent to Atlanta,Ga to CYO via. computer.

My favorite job (long, long ago) off the clerk's extra board was "NO BILL" clerk.  If you don't have bills now a days that job must be gone.  So, what do you do these days if a stray car shows up in the yard??