Association of American Railroads' Equipment Assets Management Working Committee (EAMWC) plans in early October to vote on an effective date for railroads to convert to a new tracking and tracing message type when reporting cars, said American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association in a prepared statement.
The new message type would offer railroads greater flexibility when reporting car location, including a haulage table designed to ensure that AAR's TRAIN II® system doesn’t process unnecessary messages for certain cars that don't require tracing.
TRAIN II provides North American rail car location data as reported by more than 300 railroads. Shippers, consignees, railroads and equipment owners use the AAR-provided information to enhance their inventory management, operations, customer service, planning and asset management. TRAIN II supports data in various formats through SteelRoads.com and NetREDI's Internet tracing package.
AAR would require the originating haulage carrier to set up the new tables; ASLRRA believes most of that requirement would fall on Class Is with haulage rights over a short line. However, short lines that originate traffic and have haulage rights over a Class I would need to be set up the tables.
The rule change most likely will take effect in six months to a year, said John Secor, Louisville and Indiana Railroad Co. president and ASLRRA's EAMWC representative, adding that Railcar Management Inc. offered to help short lines set up tables.
Source: Progressive Railroading Daily News
