What is a “Z Train”?
I read somewhere that any train carrying UPS or FedEx trailers are Z Trains, and that Z Trains have the highest priority on the railroad.
I looked it up on Wikipedia, but the explanation wasn’t really all that clear.
Are all Intermodal Trains classified as Z Trains?
According to Wikipedia, when a Z Train travels, the lower categories of priority freight, i.e., (M) Manifest, (I) Intermodal, and (R) Rock wait on sidings for the Z Train to pass.
I know what Mixed-Manifest and an Intermodal Trains look like, but I’ve never heard of the “Rock Train” category.
I’m guessing a Rock Train is not just a train that hauls rocks, but must mean something else.
So, what is a “Rock Train” that must wait on a siding while a Z Train goes by?
There is no standard, as such, for train symbols. Some do use Z to indicate a hot train. On CSX, on the other hand, a Z indicates a foreign line train operating on CSX trackage - such as shortline trackage rights.
I don’t think NS uses any letters in their train symbols.
I think there was an article not long ago about train symbols.
I’ll leave it to someone conversant on the “western lines” to discuss symbols there.
Each carriers has it’s own ‘Train Naming Conventions’ that tell employees of the carrier what they need to know about how to handle the train - its schedule - its pickup and setoffs - its origin - its destination - when it originated - the priority management wants it to have. There was an article in Trains about 18 months ago that gave a cursory explanation to each carriers train naming conventions.
The cominations of all the carriers ‘scheduled’ trains comprise it’s Operating Plan. The plan does get changed on a weekly or more frequent basis dependent upon operational realities that are either planned or unplanned. (Planned = curfew on XYZ Sub having track out of service for 12 hours a day for a defined period of time. Unplanned = mudslide damaged 25 miles ZYX sub and unknown when normal service will be restored)
These train naming conventions are among the ‘cardinal rules’ of each carriers ‘car and train’ computer data bases that the companies use to keep track of their business on a miniute to minute basis. Access to this data base gives the Customer Service Reps the answers necessary when customers question the progress or delay of their shipments.
I believe both BNSF & UP use a Z in designating their intermodal trains. Not all intermodal trains are ‘hot’ - some are, some are not. CSX & NS do not use Z in design
NS has three character train symbols. They can use a letter in the third place. e.g. 23Q. Pre-Conrail they only used numbers.
The first letter sort of designates the type of train. 1 and 3 are merchandise, 2 is intermodal and multilevel. 4 mostly grain. 5, 6, 7, 8 mostly coal.
There is actually a train type associated with the symbol when the schedule is built for the train.
NS has been getting ready for a 10 character train symbol for quite a while. As each IT system gets upgraded, it’s provisioned for 10 charaters. There is just one system left to be converted or eliminated. …any year now…
“Rock Train” is new to me. The Pennsylvania RR used to have “mineral traffic/ trains” which carried one or more of coal*, iron ore, limestone (those 3 being the prime ingredients for steel), rock, gravel, sand, other ores, etc.
*Not sure if coal was separate or not, but you get the idea, I’m sure.
On Union Pacific “rock train” is code R, associated with E for ‘light power move’ and W for “work train”. This may indicate a different type of load category than the Florida ‘phosphate rock’ unit trains.
Also on UP, C is “coal” and O is “ore” explicitly. I don’t know what the code for an oil train would be, but U is the ‘grain’ code used for ethanol trains (politely ignoring the actual biomass genetics involved!)
CSX does a lot of business with various Rock Runner’s. These are scheduled aggregate trains operating between quarry’s and customer aggregate distribution terminals.
CSX & NS are also big in Trash Trains - hauling municipal trash from Northeastern cities to dumps in the Southeast and West; the high population density of the Northeast means their is virtually no place for common dumps for local trash.
The moral equivalent of a Z train NS would be a Premium Intermodal train. There are a couple dozen. You can’t tell by the symbol, but operating folks and the dispatching system know which they are and they preferred priority, just behind Amtrak.
The “Z” designation comes from a long established AAR requirement that the reporting marks for railroad owned or controlled TOFC trailers end with the letter “Z”. Some non-railroads, such as JB Hunt, followed the convention. JB Hunt used JBHZ on their rail trailers. UPS used UPSZ. Leasing company “XTRA” marked its trailers XTRZ, leasing company Realco marked its trailers REAZ, etc. As an example, an XTRA trailer would be marked and numbered XTRZ206981. That’s how you kept track of the dang things. The railroads used such reporting marks as ICGZ, SFTZ, BNZ, CNWZ, UPZ, etc.
The expidited intermodal trains thus had almost solid consists of equipment with reporting marks ending in “Z”. So they came to be called “Z” trains. The improvised designation made its way in to official use on a couple railroads. It’s now used, on at least the Union Pacific, to designate any expidited schedule.
The AAR says container reporting marks must end with the letter “U”. But I’ve never heard of a “U” train.
All the above explanations are very good, but every railroad is different. Up in Canada I’ve never seen a “Z” train around here, but all CN’s intermodal trains are designated by the letter “Q” (supposedly stands for ‘quality service’). Then again we don’t have any true hotshots or premium intermodal service up here.
Also on CN the letter “Z” is used to denote a light engine move, for example “Z802” would be light engines heading out to pick up cars from a grain elevator (800’s are grain trains on CN) while “G803” would be the return trip with the loaded train. The numbers are different because in our train numbering scheme even numbers are supposed to be east/northbound, and odds are west/southbound.
CN Letters
| A - Short Haul/Single Division |
| B - Potash |
| C - Coal |
| D - Interchange Delivered (In the computer system only) |
| E - Priority Freight/Priority Automotive |
| F - Foreign Trains |
| G - Grain |
| H - Shared Running (Eg: Normal CP trains running on CN) |
| I - Interchange Received (In the computer system only) |
| J - Joint Running (Eg: Normal CP trains running on CN) |
| K - Transfers |
| L - Local work |
| M - General Priority/Multi Division |
| N - Unidentified movement through AEI scanner (In the computer system only) |
| O - Company Service Trains (Eg: Rail, Rock, Test Trains &h |
And, here’s CSX:
Direction of train based on symbol
–Even numbered trains are usually east-bounds and north-bounds
–Odd numbered trains are usually west-bounds and south-bounds
A_ _ _ - Yard switcher, Southern Region (Atlanta and Jacksonville Division) Locals
B_ _ _ - Cumberland coal business unit trains, Northern Region Locals
C_ _ _ - Locals
D_ _ _ - Locals
[quote user=“tree68”]
And, here’s CSX:
Direction of train based on symbol
–Even numbered trains are usually east-bounds and north-bounds
–Odd numbered trains are usually west-bounds and south-bounds
A_ _ _ - Yard switcher, Southern Region (Atlanta and Jacksonville Division) Locals
B_ _ _ - Cumberland coal business unit trains, Northern Region Locals
C_ _ _ - Locals
D_ _ _ - Locals
Found it on what appears to be someone’s personal website. Should have attributed… Looks like the site has symbols for most of the railroads.
https://sites.google.com/site/trainsymbols/home
Edit - I tried to light it up…
Thanks. Just couldn’t get it to work… Next time it’ll work just fine… [:S]
On the UP the prefix code for through train symbols is one or two letters.
A-automotive.
C-coal.
E-engine move.
F-foreign line detour.
G-grain. They usually have a second letter (such as an S for shuttle train) to further describe the train.
I and K are intermodal symbols.
M and Q are manifests.
O-ore. Also used for oil trains.
R-rock or sand train.
S-customer’s special. It can be a freight move, such as a wind turbine train or high/wide train, or a business car train.
U-unit train. Unit ethanol trains will have a UE designation.
Z-premium intermodal. Also used for the Railex perishable train.
W-work train. The letter behind the origin/destination code describes what type of train it is. B for ballast, R for rail train, T for ties, G for gang move, Z for Herzog bal
In addition to what Jeff said, there is a “section” prefix and other suffixes.
A section is an additional instance of a train schedule that is not regularly planned. There is also a “B” suffx (or C,D, etc). for a planned second instance of a train.
If Council Bluffs has enough traffic to run two manifest trains a day to N Platte, there will be two manifest schedules, MCBNP and MCBNPB. If Ft Worth has enough business to run one train a day between Ft Worth and N Platte, but today has two trains worth of that business, they will run an MFWNP and 2MFWNP.
There are also suffixes for trains on different days of the week, for variable schedules, for schedules that have been modified.