November 1, 2021
Renewal season ended on July 31, 2021. If you have not renewed your subscription. Please remove the RPCX reporting mark from your car.
For next year make sure that your insurance certificate shows RPCNB as "ADDITIONAL INSURED". Over the last couple of years, many have had RPCNB as a Certificate Holder. Starting next year that will not be acceptable.
OT-57. Any OT-57 equipment must be confirmed each year.
April 17, 2021
Annual subscription renewal season is here. Invoice will by out by the end of April. If you have not received an invoice for your equipment and believe you should have, CALL US.
Payment methods: Check, Money Order and Square for Credit Cards. If you wish RPCNB can send an invoice to you via email and we will never see your card numbers or we can take your payment over the phone.
August 11, 2020
New Form for Passenger Car movement on forms page!
OT-57 - New form on the forms page.
December 6th, 2018
Railinc has announced the following update for Umler:
"In preparation for the Umler Release scheduled for December 6, 2018, Railinc is reaching out to PSGR car owners affected by an impending rule change for Gross Rail Load/Weight (A266), Load Limit (LDLT), and Tare Weight (A259). These elements will now be mandatory for PSGR equipment after this release.
To avoid your car(s) going into conflict after December 6, 2018 please update Umler to align with this impending rule change."
RPCNB is requesting that you complete the weight calculator available on the RPCNB web site, and email it to us saving it for your files.
Because the Load Limit and Gross Rail Load fields don't exist now, we cannot update the Umler record until Dec 6 when those fields will be added.
This means that every passenger car in Umler will go into conflict as soon as those 2 fields are added, and if the Tare weight field has nothing in it. In conflict means that railroads are not supposed to move the car until the conflict is resolved. If the conflict is not resolved in 30 days, the computer relabels the car "restricted from interchange". If the conflict is not resolved in 30 days, the computer relabels the car "subject to deletion". If the conflict is not resolved in 30 days, the computer can delete your car from Umler.
Coming Up on October 15 -16
Dan and Pamm will be doing a presentation at Penn State University next week. The topics will be How Deep Does One Need to Go Into Hardcore Data and How Not to Allow Your Car/Loco to Get Lost.
October 9, 2018
Several RPCNB Subscribers have called saying that a railroad has told them that they need OT-5 for their MOW or passenger car. Railroads have also indicated that there would be additional charges without an OT-5 on file. Investigation has shown that OT-5 is not only not required for passenger cars or MOW equipment, but can not be completed for these cars.
Should you receive a request that you need to do an OT-5 for your equipment or you will face an additional charge to move your equipment, call us we can assist in a solution to this problem.
October 2, 2018
Dan worked with New York Air Brake to identify components that would simplify PTC installation in steam locos. Expect more data at Cincinnati conference.
August 24
PTC updates:
August 1
We would like to thank all the subscribers who renewed their subscriptions and RPCA memberships on time, allowing RPCNB to report at the Mid Year RPCA Board meeting that we are solvent and INCREASED the number of subscribers.
For those few who have not renewed, your subscription renewal is past due and your equipment is subject to deletion.
March 29
Here are the progress reports on PTC from the FRA and AAR. You can access them by going to the sites listed below:
FRA PTC Progress Report Q4 2017
https://www.fra.dot.gov/app/ptcprogress/2017q4
March 19
A New Umler Data Form on the RPCNB web site. Please use the new form as data requirements have changed.
A new Umler Data Spec Manual is now available at the Railinc web site.
February, 2018
On February 15 the final review of data and process for placing the Load Limit and Gross Rail Load back into the passenger car section of Umler was approved.
There were a couple of associated changes that were also approved.
Getting accurate weights into Umler is very important. That data is required for PTC to properly work. A very recent example is a car weighed in February this year, that has an Umler Tare weight of 120,000 pounds. It actually weighs 132,520 pounds. That extra weight means the train will not stop as short as the computer calculates it should. If this is an accurate example of a number of cars, that is dangerous.
When the data fields are implemented in Umler, they will immediately become mandatory. That means cars that do not have the weight, star code and bearing fields properly filled in will immediately go into conflict, and then into "restricted in interchange". The class one railroads will not handle cars restricted in interchange.
Because of the way this will be implemented, that means every passenger car in Umler, privately owned, railroad owned, commuter agency and Amtrak, will immediately become "In Conflict" when the weight data fields are implemented. That means there will be a rush to get the data input, and that will slow the system down.
If your car is in Umler, please get your car weighed as soon as possible and provide that information of when and where weighed, date done, and the weight obtained to the RPCNB along with the car reporting mark and number.
If you have an Amtrak "800" numbered car, and already have provided numbers to Amtrak, Amtrak does NOT send that information back your Umler services person. You need to send it directly to your Umler service provider.
Railinc is still working out when they can implement the change. The first half of 2018 is already scheduled for other PTC mandated changes.
Watch the RPCA electronic Newsletter and the RPCNB web site for notice of when it will be implemented, but don't wait to schedule getting your car weighed for that notice. People can't move their cars to a shop for weighing if they are already in conflict or restricted in interchange. And when this notice hits the industry media, those shops will be flooded with customers attempting to get in before their cars do go into conflict.
January, 2018
Only a couple of days after the RPCA Annual Conference, there was an Umler Data Quality Task Force conference call. Adding back into Umler the Load Limit and Gross Rail Load was one of the topics. With few questions, the ranges of acceptable entries was accepted and the change
recommended to go before the full Umler Committee for approval. Early in February there will be another conference call to discuss implementation, and acceptable journal bearing codes. By implementation, we mean when do the data fields show up on-line for input, and when do those fields become mandatory. The list of acceptable journal bearing codes is recommended to be reduced by 3, dropping the A, B and H class bearings.
If you sent the data only to Amtrak, it does not get to RPCNB, GLR nor other Umler services
providers, and therefore is NOT in Umler. You need to send the data to YOUR service provider or input it yourself to Umler.
The Umler record MUST match the Amtrak record, meaning Tare, Load Limit and Gross Rail Load numbers must be identical in the two systems.
January 26, 2017
We have added a weight calculator to the Forms Page. The calculator will match the weight estimates that Amtrak uses.
A message from Mr. Trombecky for ALL Amtrak private car owners:
To all Car owners
This is a very important message that you MUST respond to. Many of the Host Rail Roads will be turning on a type of PTC called I-ETMS. The BNSF and CSX are preparing to activate with this type of PTC. Attached is a list of the car Numbers that we still require critical information for. The weight requirement has changed since the first time we have asked for this information. We will need the best loaded car weight for you cars. This information will be required to be in the PTC data base for us to continue to add your cars to trains.
Lee Trombecky
Sr.Manager Quality & Compliance/Regulatory Compliance
RPCNB interprets that this includes all physical dimensions, brake system identification, and weight. For Amtrak this is Gross Rail Load. This does not match the weights in Umler. We are working to correct that.
July, 2016
As of July 19th Fax is no longer available. Please email or scan and email documents to RPCNB!
RPCNB NEWS
We have a new page Procedural Changes! This affects how you move under RPCX. Please read this information!
Also note the changes on the SOP page.
In moving RPCNB forward, we now have a new web site address. www.rpcnb.com. The site was previously hosted by Great Lakes Railcar to help get RPCNB started. Please update your bookmarks! The new site contains all the data forms, agreements and information from the previous site.
With the new site we also have new email addresses. rpcx@rpcnb.com for Umler/EMIS data and rpcaequipros@rpcnb.com for the RPCA equipment roster. The old email address will still work for a while, but please update your email address books!
INDUSTRY NEWS
Locomotives without alignment control couplers may require a special train move, depending on the railroad and trains involved.
As of now CSX will not accept non-rotating end cap bearings. If you do not have rotating end caps (also known as AP bearings), your choices are to move by flatcar or truck or to change the bearings by swapping axles or trucks. CSX also requires an inspection before movement. They will ask who maintains your car, type of bearings, etc. Remember to allow extra time in your movement schedule to allow for this.
We also have a continuing issue that articulated or draw bar connected cars are experiencing some problems. Some Class 1's requires that the same data for freight articulated car be used for passenger cars. The problem occurs with Umler/EMIS. The passenger section for articulated or draw bar connected currently does not contain the same information as the freight. We are working with the Railroads and the Railinc Data Quality Task Force to resolve this issue.