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End-to-End Domestic Rail Asset Visibility

OpenTrack now supports comprehensive tracking of domestic railcars. This expansion goes beyond container-only visibility to include all railcars, with continuous tracking across full and empty journeys.

Christian Petroske avatar
Written by Christian Petroske
Updated this week

What’s new

  • Track more than containers: Monitor any railcar transiting in North America.

  • Continuous voyage tracking: Follow your assets across full and empty moves, out-and-back, with no time limit. Track your railcars continuously, on waybill after waybill. Each journey automatically populates when it starts.

  • Premium rail visibility: Get the same high-quality tracking and status updates you expect from OpenTrack rail visibility.

  • Analytics (coming soon): Insights on utilization rates and additional performance metrics.

Click here for a sample Explore report

Key capabilities

  • Complete coverage: Track all railcars and containers supported by all North American rail carriers, classes 1, 2 and 3.

  • Full trip history: Persistent, end-to-end journey records for each asset, including interchanges, sightings, and key milestones.

  • Crucial milestones: Standard rail milestones (release from industry, in-gate, departure, arrival, constructive placement, actual placement) surfaced in a unified timeline for each voyage.

  • Granular rail sightings: Detailed, up-to-date sightings that allow you to see a railcar’s journey in granular steps.

  • Search and filters: Find assets by ID, type, load status (laden/empty), location, lane, and carrier.

  • Exception alerts: Configure notifications for milestones like arrival and availability, delays, and missed sightings.

  • Data export: Download asset lists and journey histories for reporting.

  • Reporting and sharing: Create custom reports and share them with colleagues or partners for live data access. Set up email notifications to power key workflows.

How it works

Track your railcars

  1. Import railcar equipment numbers via manual input, bulk CSV or API. No waybill number needed — OpenTrack discovers it automatically.

  2. Activate optional continuous tracking (if you own or lease assets long-term). Include the field “Leased” and set it to “Yes” in order to activate continuous tracking for that railcar. For example:

  1. Watch as OpenTrack starts tracking your railcars automatically, whether they’re empty or full.

  2. When the current waybill journey ends, railcars with “Leased: Yes” will automatically restart tracking of the new trip and waybill.

Any equipment with no “Leased” flag will be tracked normally, without automatically renewing tracking after termination.

Monitor and act

  • Use filtered reports to identify idle or delayed assets.

  • Set alerts for exceptions (prolonged dwell, late arrival, etc).

  • View live status and location in a single place, without needing to manually check rail lines.

  • Receive up-to-date data automatically in your ERP or TMS.

Review performance

  • Access journey histories for audits and service reviews.

  • Use exports for internal reporting and planning.

Coming soon: Analytics

  • Utilization rate by asset type and lane

  • Turn time and dwell analysis (terminal and in-transit)

  • Cycle time benchmarking (full vs. empty)

  • Exception trend reporting

Get started

Contact us through in-app chat or email support@opentrack.co to enable continuous tracking for your account.

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