Skip to main content

Domestic Rail Visibility, Now in OpenTrack

OpenTrack now supports domestic rail visibility for all equipment moving on rail within North America. No ocean leg, no problem.

Christian Petroske avatar
Written by Christian Petroske
Updated yesterday

We’ve extended our signature intermodal rail visibility to domestic rail shipments, with some improvements focused exclusively on domestic operations.

You get all the key milestones and data points: LFD, sightings, availability, ETA, and more. See the section below “Data included” for details.

The data comes from our direct connections with all North American Class 1 rail carriers, plus traditional rail data aggregators. This enables us to get precision visibility from UP, CN, CP, etc… but also full coverage of the long tail of smaller regional railroads.

How it works

At a high level, here’s how it works:

  1. You give OpenTrack the equipment number (yes, we only need the container or equipment number - this also works for many non-container railcars)

  2. OpenTrack discovers the waybill number and railroad from rail data aggregators

  3. Then if it’s with one of the Class 1’s, we track the whole voyage directly with the Class 1

  4. If it’s not, we continue to get data from rail data aggregators

Currently OpenTrack supports full voyages, not yet empty voyages - though this is next on our roadmap.

Takeaways

  1. OpenTrack’s signature high-quality rail data, delivered automatically to you

  2. Crucial milestones for domestic rail moves

  3. Last Free Day, chassis number, availability notifications

  4. Monitoring: Upcoming LFD, No sightings in 48 hours, Failed to Load

  5. Direct connection with all North American Class 1 rail carriers and their partner programs (UMAX, etc)

  6. Coverage of all smaller railroads via traditional rail data aggregators

  7. Full support of laden voyages, empty voyage support coming soon

Monitoring included

Alert

Description

Delivery Appointment Risk

Be alerted about containers that are likely to miss their delivery appointment. OpenTrack’s algorithm uses the latest ETA plus the average terminal dwell time to produce an estimate of appointment risk that puts your attention where it needs to be.

No Sightings in 48 Hours

See which containers have departed on rail but we haven't received an updated GPS location in more than 48 hours.

Rail LFD Coming Soon

See all containers with Last Free Day at Rail Facility within 48 hours (yesterday, today, and tomorrow).

Failed To Load

See which containers have been sitting at the port for more than 2 days without being loaded.

Rail Arrival Schedule

See the schedule of all containers arriving this week.

Data included

Data

Description

DESTINATION RAILROAD

Railroad transporting the equipment to final rail facility

CURRENT RAILROAD

The railroad currently transporting the equipment

ORIGIN RAIL STATION

Rail station at origin

FINAL RAIL STATION

Rail station at final destination

LAST FREE DAY AT RAIL FACILITY

Last free day at final rail facility. This is the date by which the equipment should be picked up to avoid incurring fees.

ETA TO FINAL RAIL FACILITY

ETA to final rail facility

DEMURRAGE OWED AT FINAL RAIL FACILITY

Estimated or actual dollar amount of demurrage accrued at the final rail facility.

CHASSIS NUMBER

The identifier of the chassis used to pull the container from the rail facility

Milestones

Description

FULL INGATED TO RAIL FACILITY

Equipment ingated to departure ramp facility

LOADED ON RAIL

Equipment placed on rail car to destination

DEPARTED ON RAIL

Equipment departed on rail to final destination

ARRIVED AT RAIL FACILITY

Equipment arrival at final rail facility

UNLOADED FROM RAIL

Equipment deramped from rail

AVAILABLE AT RAIL FACILITY

Equipment was released by customs

FULL OUTGATED FROM RAIL FACILITY

Equipment outgated from final rail facility

ACTUAL PLACEMENT (in development)

EMPTY VOYAGE milestones (in development)

Did this answer your question?