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Ryan, I have been pretty busy with personal and MPHS business through the holidays and I am a bit behind with this discussion.
I was a conductor and trainmaster on the MP/UP, so I have a lot of experience with car and train tracking systems used by various railroads. I spent a lot of time as a trainmaster type in KC where you live or die by efficient interaction with other roads.
It seems as though each individual railroad has its own system for describing car types. But, each system is required to “speak” with UMLER (Universal Machine Language Equipment Register) which is maintained by the AAR. This allows for easy exchange of information when cars are interchanged. The AAR created a subsidiary called Railinc to maintain this system. Every car moving in interchange is required to be registered in UMLER. Take a look at https://www.railinc.com/rportal/web/guest/home and you should find plenty of info on UMLER and STCC codes.
To answer your question about car trip plans, the date and time a car is released affect the trip plan. There are cutoff times based on the scheduled service for each customer. If the release is after the cutoff time it will schedule to the following business day as indicated by the frequency of service a customer is scheduled to receive (3 days a week, 5 days, everyday, etc.). The original trip plan assumes that all moves are made as initially scheduled. As the car progresses, the plan is altered if the car arrives late or early. The original plan is retained and the transportation folks are judged by how well they were able to adhere to this plan. I left UP about three years ago, but, at that time, the big goal was to remove variability. It used to be OK to get a car to destination early. Now, they want it to arrive exactly when it was scheduled to. That’s a pretty tough goal. I don’t know if they are doing well or not.
