How about a shot of a TCS screen for this discussion……

This image was cropped out of a slide used to illustrate either a presentation or an annual report. It has some pixelation from application of a sharpening filter in Photoshop. Disclaimer: I am a student of TCS, not a practitioner. Hopefully Kevin and Charlie can correct me where I derail, and fill in any holes.

The screen is a car inquiry screen showing origin, destination and its trip plan. The top line shows the car initials and number (MP 253558), L=loaded, L50 is a car type code for a boxcar equipped with load restraining devices. It is carrying “BRICK”, but the more descriptive STCC code follows that, 3255110 being the STCC code for Fire Brick. (STCC is Standard Transportation Commodity Code, and this is the classification that matches up with the proper rate for billing the cost of the movement.)

The second line shows the waybill number, date waybill created, and location where the car was waybilled. Next lines show origin station and shipper, destination station and receiver. Company names made up for demo purposes. OFF indicates the car goes offline, in this case interchanged to FW&D at Ft Worth. ETA=I/C is the interchange ETA at TP250 (station code for Ft Worth).

Next is the trip plan. Each line is an event. SA=station arrival, SS=station setout, SD=station departure, SP=station pickup, RL=released. The trip events are read from bottom upwards, with past events under the dashed line, and scheduled events above the dashed line. This trip plan shows the car released at ZTS location 04-851-01. It is scheduled to be picked up by yard job YM38-16 (Job M38 of the 16th of the month), then it leaves Memphis on train MLS-17 (Memphis-Little Rock-Southern, a runthrough off the Southern Rwy at Memphis), and at Little Rock it is classified to Train LF (Little Rock-Ft Worth) for the trip to Ft Worth. Scheduled dates and times for each event.

I have been working with JMRI to see if I can duplicate the MP train consist formats generated from TCS, for use on my model railroad. Still a very early work-in-progress.

[attachment=0:3o696nns]Demo TCS screen.jpg[/attachment:3o696nns]