Car spotting is precise positioning of a
railroad car
A railroad car, railcar (American English, American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and International Union of Railways, UIC), also called a tra ...
for loading/unloading.
When a
locomotive
A locomotive is a rail transport, rail vehicle that provides the motive power for a train. Traditionally, locomotives pulled trains from the front. However, Push–pull train, push–pull operation has become common, and in the pursuit for ...
pulls a train of
freight car
Goods wagons or freight wagons (North America: freight cars), also known as goods carriages, goods trucks, freight carriages or freight trucks, are unpowered railway vehicles that are used for the transportation of cargo. A variety of wagon types ...
s to a loading/unloading station, it approximately positions them with respect to freight handling equipment, since locomotives are not well-suited for precise positioning. Therefore, special systems (car spotters) are invented for car spotting. Systems that handle strings (trains) of cars to spot them one after another are known as car progressors or car indexers.
"Car Spotter Drive"
a US patent description
See also
*Car spotting (service)
Car spotting is a service in rail transport
Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport using wheeled vehicles running in railway track, tracks, which usually consist of two parallel steel railway track, rails. Rail ...
* Heyl & Patterson Inc. - manufacturer of car indexers
*Train shunting puzzle
Train shunting puzzles, also often called railway shunting puzzles or railroad switching puzzles, are a type of puzzle.
Shunting puzzles usually consist of a specific track layout, a set of initial conditions (typically the starting place of eac ...
References
Rail transport operations
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