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 a railcar
classification yard or terminal.
Terminal - a railroad facility used for handling
freight and the receiving, classifying, assembling
