Quick outline
- Why I needed rail shipment software
- What I picked and how it felt on day one
- Real shipments I tracked last week
- What I love vs what still bugs me
- Who it fits, plus a few tips
- My final take
Why I Needed It (and yes, I was tired of guessing)
I plan freight for a small team. We move lumber, tank cars, and auto parts. I used to work out of email and railroad portals like ShipCSX and AccessNS. It worked… until it didn’t. Trains sat. Cars vanished in yards. People called me every hour.
I needed one screen. One place to see every railcar, across railroads. I wanted alerts that made sense. Not noise.
If you want the longer back-story on how I landed on this toolset, I pulled my notes together in an illustrated rundown of the rail shipment software I depend on each week.
What I Picked: Railinc RailSight Track & Trace
I went with Railinc RailSight. I still use ShipCSX for waybills on CSX, and BNSF’s site for some billing checks. For anyone curious about the full portfolio, the broader RailSight suite of applications covers billing, repairs, and more. But RailSight sits in the middle. It pulls car moves from many railroads, so I don’t juggle five tabs. That alone felt like sleep.
Day one, I imported a CSV with 312 car numbers. The upload took two tries. My fault—I had spaces in a few marks. It flagged the errors in a small red banner. Not fancy, but clear.
I set simple rules:
- Email me if a car dwells over 24 hours at any yard.
- Text me if ETA pushes more than 8 hours.
- Tag cars by customer name, PO, and product (like “ethanol” or “stud lumber”).
The dashboard isn’t pretty. Think early 2010s. But it’s fast. Filters snap. Exports land in seconds. If you like deeper specs, Railinc publishes a handy RailSight Track & Trace overview PDF that breaks down the data points behind those exports.
A Real Week On The Job
Monday: Tank Cars to New Jersey, one “bad order”
We had 36 tank cars of ethanol going IA to NJ, mix of GATX and UTLX. At 7:12 AM, RailSight pinged me: “Bad order – mechanical.” One car showed stuck near Proviso yard. A bad order means the car needs repair. No guessing, it spelled it out.
I called the plant. We adjusted the plan and used buffer stock. RailSight updated the ETA for the rest of the set. One car stayed behind. The rest rolled. We avoided a line shutdown. You know what? That alert paid for breakfast and then some.
Tuesday: Lumber into Chicago, slow yard, saved a day
Two centerbeams of lumber came down CN into the Chicago area. The dwell timer tripped at 26 hours in Homewood. I pulled the move history in RailSight. It showed interchange scans and a gap that smelled like congestion.
I sent the PDF export to our CN rep. Ten minutes later we had a push. Cars moved that night. We didn’t miss our morning unload window. That was one day saved. No drama, just data with clear timestamps.
Wednesday: Auto parts via Laredo, demurrage avoided
Auto parts from Monterrey up to Detroit, crossing at Laredo. Interchange lag hit 12 hours. RailSight’s ETA slid, then slid again. I set a quick SMS alert for that lane after the first slip. We shifted the truck transfer time by half a day and avoided yard fees. Demurrage (fees when a car sits too long) can sting. This time it didn’t. The math said we dodged about $1,050.
Thursday: Surprise stop in North Dakota snow
Winter, right? A mixed freight with 11 of our cars slowed near Minot. RailSight showed weather chatter on the railroad feed and a bunch of late scans. I didn’t panic. I told sales we’d land a day late. Folks stayed calm. No angry calls. Snow happens; clear ETAs help.
Friday: Batch cleanup and one lesson learned
I did a housekeeping pass. I cleaned up tags and merged two saved views I made in a rush. Found three cars with wrong PO tags. That fix helped the Monday report match finance. Small thing, big peace.
If you’re curious how I keep the back-end data safe while I tinker, I recently ran disaster-recovery drills on several platforms—those tests pushed me to automate nightly RailSight exports to a cold cloud folder.
What I Love
- Multi-rail view: CSX, BNSF, CN, UP, NS—one screen. No tab hopping.
- Dwell and ETA rules: Simple, useful, and not too chatty if you tune them.
- Fast exports: CSV or PDF, ready for a quick email to a rep.
- Saved views: I keep one per customer. It’s my morning coffee check.
- Move history: It tells the story—scan by scan—without fluff.
What Still Bugs Me
- The look: Feels old. It works, but it’s not pretty.
- Alert floods if you’re lazy: If you don’t tune rules by lane, your phone blows up.
- ETAs swing on long hauls: Not their fault, but still. I pair it with a little common sense.
- Price by volume: If you track tons of cars, watch the bill. Project44 looked slick too, but the cost for us was steep.
The whole experience mirrors how I vet other ops tools—when I compared power-supply monitoring options, the lessons from the PSU software I actually stick with reminded me to weigh quiet reliability over flashy dashboards.
Who It Fits (and who might not need it)
- Shippers with cars on more than one railroad? Yes, this helps.
- 3PL folks with many small customers? Also yes.
- If you only use one railroad, the railroad’s own portal might be enough. ShipCSX is solid if you’re CSX heavy. Same with AccessNS, MyUPRR, and BNSF’s tools.
A Few Tips That Saved Me Time
- Set dwell alerts by lane, not global. Chicago needs a tighter trigger than a rural yard.
- Tag cars by customer and product on day one. Your Friday report will thank you.
- Keep one “hot list” view for anything due in 72 hours.
- Use exports when a yard stalls. A clean PDF bumps you to the front of the line more than a long email.
- Turn off SMS at night unless the lane is truly hot. Sleep matters.
(And if you’re brand-new to freight tech and feeling swamped, my survival guide from absolute software newbie to semi-pro might be the pep talk you need.)
Once the alerts finally quiet down and you’re off the clock, you might pivot from keeping railcars moving to keeping your social life interesting. For anyone curious about hassle-free ways to meet new people online, How to Get Free Sex Online explains safe platforms, profile tips, and etiquette so you can unwind without denting your budget. Rail jobs often mean unexpected overnight stays in yard towns; if one of those pauses drops you near Alabama’s university hub, a quick look at Backpage Tuscaloosa can surface real-time local listings and reviews so you spend downtime connecting rather than searching.
A Tiny Compare: RailSight vs the Fancy Stuff
I tried a short pilot of project44’s rail view. It was pretty and did well on map views.
I also skimmed some white papers from Cupid Systems and found their take on multimodal visibility surprisingly practical.
For my team, RailSight + railroad portals hit the sweet spot. Cheaper. Faster to learn. Less wow, more go.
Final Take
Railinc RailSight Track & Trace made my week calmer. It’s not cute, but it’s steady. I still use ShipCSX and other railroad sites for billing and some forms. But RailSight is where I live during the day.
Score from me: 4 out of 5.
- It saves time.
- It cuts guesswork.
- It pays for itself when a car sits.
Would I keep it? Yes. And I did.