Boxcar - an enclosed car used for general service and especially for lading which must be protected from weather.
Bulk transfer - the transfer of bulk products, such as plastic pellets or liquid sweeteners, from one mode of transportation to another. Bulk transfer permits off-rail shippers and receivers of varied commodities to combine rail's long-haul efficiencies with truck's convenient door-to-door delivery.
Capitalized costs - expenditures that have future benefit and thus are recorded as assets.
Car utilization - ways to measure railcar productivity.
Among the measures are how much freight a car hauled and how many trips it made in a specified period of time.
Carload - a shipment of not fewer than five tons of one commodity.
Class I railroad - a railroad having operating revenues of more than $256.4 million annually.
Conductor - the individual responsible for the safe and proper management of the train.
Connecting carrier - a railroad with a physical connection to another.
Container - a large, weatherproof box designed for shipping freight in bulk by rail, truck or steamship.
Cycle time - the length of time consumed by a freight car from one loading to the next.
Distribution center - the centrally located warehouse where goods shipped long distances by rail are loaded onto trucks for short-haul delivery to receivers, or vice versa. Also called a reload center, it combines the economies of rail with the flexibility of truck pickup
and delivery.
Double-stack containers - containers that can be stacked atop one another on a flatcar.
End-of-train device (EOT) - a telemetry device, required by federal law, that is installed at the rear of a train to relay information to the locomotive engineer.
Engineer - the individual responsible for the movement of the train.
Flatcar - an open car without sides or roof.
Gondola - a freight car with sides but without a roof.
Grade crossing - the point at which a roadway intersects a rail line.
Gross ton-mile - the movement of the combined weight of cars and their contents a distance of one mile.
Haulage rights - rights obtained by one railroad to have its trains operated by another railroad over that railroad's tracks.
Hopper - an open-top car with pockets, or hoppers, opening on the underside of the car for unloading bulk commodities.
Hump yard - a regional gathering point where freight is classified and forwarded to final destinations. The three components are a receiving yard, a classification yard in which railcars are pushed over a hump to various classification tracks and a forwarding yard.
Intermodal service - freight moving via at least two different modes of transport. Intermodal service generally involves the shipment of containers and trailers by rail, truck, barge, or ship.
Lading - freight or cargo making up a shipment.
Less-than-truckload (LTL) - the quantity of freight that's less than that required for application of a trailerload rate.
Line capacity - the maximum number of trains that can operate safely and reliably over a given segment of track during a given period of time.
Line-haul service - the movement over the tracks of a carrier from one city to another, not including the switching service.
Main line - primary rail line over which trains operate between terminals. It excludes sidings, and yard and industry tracks.
Multilevel car - a long flatcar designed with one or more deck levels in addition to the car's main deck; used to haul new automobiles and trucks.
Net ton-mile - the movement of a ton of freight one mile.
Operating ratio - the percentage of revenues that goes into operating the railroad. It is calculated by dividing railway operating expenses by railway operating revenues.
Return on equity - net income divided by average stockholders' equity.
Revenue ton-mile - the movement of a ton of freight one mile for revenue.
Right-of-way - the property owned by a railroad over which tracks have been laid.
Subsidiary - a company owned by another company that controls a majority of its stock.
Switching - movement of freight cars between two nearby locations or trains. Switching is a term typically associated with activities that occur in arailcar classification yard or terminal.
Terminal - a railroad facility used for handling freight and the receiving, classifying, assembling and dispatching of trains. [page]
Through freight train - an express freight trainbetween major terminals.
Total return to stockholders - stock-price change plus reinvested dividends expressed as a percentage of the purchase price of the stock.
Trackage rights - rights obtained by one railroad to operate its trains over another railroad's tracks.
Trailer - a cargo-carrying highway vehicle without automotive power.
Unit train - a freight train that moves carloads of a single product between two points. By unloading on arrival and returning promptly for another load, such trains can cut costs because they eliminate intermediate stops in yards and reduce cycle times.
Welded rail - the standard unit of track structure providing safer, seamless service.
Yard - a system of tracks branching from a common track. Yards are used for switching, making up trains and storing cars.
