Fleet Facts Fast

New Fleet-Management
Power Tools

We at Procor and Union Tank Car are doing everything possible to maximize your logistics power.
Here are the latest enhancements to your growing stock of fleet management tools.

June 2009 Enhancement

Car Planned Service (CPS) and Customer Requirements

  • Car Planned Service replaces the PIM/Projects details previously in Link-Net. Car Planned Services are mechanical conversion, repair and inspection programs that are customer requested or industry/regulatory mandated.

  • Procor Customer Requirements and UTC Ready-to-Load have been replaced by a new Customer Requirements document. Your requirements are kept on file to ensure we meet your needs.

September 2008 Enhancement

UTLX Repair Invoices and Open Obligations

(Union Tank Car customers only)
Repair Invoices since January 2008 are now in UTLX Link-Net. Lease Invoices have been available since December 2001.


You can now

  • search for Repair Invoices by date, invoice number, car and/or location
  • list lease and repair invoices for which payment has net yet been received.

May 2008 Enhancement

Cars Due for Regulatory Retirement

The Link-Net Control Center will now display an alert if cars in your fleet are due to retire from service by December 31st of the current year. The retirement is per the AAR Interchange Rules age limitation. Note that this is a general rule and that future regulatory and/or AAR rule changes may alter your fleet's anticipated life.

Also the Link-Net Automatic Report Manager now has a 'Cars Due for Regulatory Retirement' report that can be emailed monthly if cars are due to retire by year end.

January 2008 Enhancement

Shop Request Form Enhancements

To assist in expediting your requests and to assist with safety you can now:

  • identify gasket and o-ring requirements
  • select last contents from a database of commodities
  • select locations from a database of stations.

Also, Link-Net remembers entered/selected data, so on the next request you can optionally select from previous submissions.

July 2007 Enhancement

E-mail Address Login

Login by using your E-Mail Address rather than User ID. The intent is to reduce the number of User IDs you have to remember and to assist in keeping e-mail addresses up-to-date.

Enhanced “Build Your Own Report” (previously called “Fleet Data: Download and Report”)

You can now filter data rather than retrieving your entire fleet. The filter allows you to select a field (or fields) and specify a condition for the retrieval.

February 2007 Enhancement

Enhanced Mechanical Details

A number of additional mechanical attributes are now available. This provides a more in-depth encyclopedia of your leased fleet and enhanced screen and report layouts. The extent of the additions are most notable on the 'Mechanical Single Car' and the 'Fleet Data: Download and Report' screens.

The enhancement is the result of a growing number of customer requests, especially for Fitting and Inspection/Test attributes.

May 2006 Enhancement

Assigned Car Listing (ACL)

A current Assigned Car Listing is now available via a link in the Leasing Information section of the Control Center. This complements the ACL that is optionally emailed at month end. The listing is in Excel format and contains pertinent lease and mechanical details for your entire fleet.

January 2006 Enhancement

Enhanced Car Tracing

Car Trace now includes

  • ETA (Estimated Time of Arrival) details in the trace response if the submitting railroad provided a trip plan or if Steelroads was able to calculate the ETA
  • inquiry into trace detail events from previously submitted traces, and
  • the ability to save a collection of car numbers for repeated traces in a trace 'set'.

August 2005 Enhancement

Open Order Status Automatic Report

Order Status is now available to you via e-mail. This report, in Excel format, contains all of the same details you now see in Link-Net for open orders. Please visit the Link-Net Automatic Report Manager facility to identify the recipient and frequency of report distribution.

May 2005 Enhancement

Drawings/Designs/Components

A Drawings/Designs/Components option has been added to the Mechanical Information section on the Control Center. When selected you will have access to Basic Design Specifications and various component descriptions.

March 2005 Enhancement

(Union Tank Car customers only)
The order status for new car orders now contains an estimated shipping schedule that provides estimated deliveries by week.

December 2004 Enhancements

Enhanced Qualification Reporting
The content and functionality of the qualification screens now include

  • Rule 88 and Stub Sill qualifications
  • check boxes to select/deselect PAST DUE, DUE and COMPLETED qualifications
  • check boxes to select/deselect IN SHOP, INBOUND and TO BE SCHEDULED shop status's.

Additonal Mechanical Details
New details added to the mechanical display and reporting include: Operating Platform, Maximum Weight on Rail, Shell Thickness, Head Thickness and, for UTC customers, Air Connection and Siphon Pipe.

The field Operating Platform was added to the Mechanical Features Counts facility that provides a frequency distribution analysis for your entire fleet.

Enhanced Current Shop Status Screen
To provide better visibility of your shoppings the Current Shop Status screen was enhanced to include

  • counts for in shop, inbound and released in the past week for each shop (these are in addition to the total count for each shop)
  • a link to view all shoppings at all shops (so that all shoppings can be viewed at once).

Shop Request Drop Down Maintenace
The existing Shop Request facility contains multiple drop downs of previously entered values that greatly assist the input of shopping details. The new drop down maintenance facility allows you to modify and/or delete entries that are no longer valid.

October 2004 Enhancement

Emailed Provincial Mileage Report

Beginning in October Procor customers can receive their Provincial Mileage Report via email in PDF format.

August 2004 Enhancement

Emailed ACL

Beginning August 1st your Assigned Car Listing (ACL) can be automatically emailed to you in spreadsheet format. Additional details have been included in the report and with the spreadsheet format you can now sort/analyze data, customize printing and import the data into other applications.

March 2004 Enhancements

New Control Center

The Control Center has been redesigned to optimize clarity and navigation. Tools have been grouped under functional category headings for selection convenience.

Shop Car Request

Two convenient shortcuts are now available which eliminate the requirement to logon. For further details, please access the Short Cut link on the Shop Car Request car entry screen or contact your local sales office or the Link-Net Help Desk.

October 2003 Enhancements

Order Status

You can now monitor order fulfillment and track ordered cars into your service. Open orders and orders fulfilled within the last 30 days are available for the following order types: Replacement, Existing Car Lease, New Car Lease and, for UTC customers, New Car Sale.

April 2003 Enhancements

Shop Car Request

If you are a UTC customer, you can now shop your car(s) through UTLX Link-Net® and receive the same benefits listed below in the September 2002 enhancements.

To keep Link-Net® Shop Request the best, quickest and easiest way to shop your car(s), we have made the following enhancements:

  • You can now add attachments. Just press the Add Attachments button
  • Special Instructions field size is bigger to accomodate more information from you
  • A Return Disposition Address field is now available.

January 2003 Enhancements

Ready-To-Load/Customer Requirements

Now you can immediately view the ready-to-load specifications (for Union Tank Car) and customer requirements (for Procor) we have on file. You can view requirement details and attachments, plus submit new information electronically.

Blue Book

This reference book published by Union Tank Car Company is available upon login. It has many informative sections: commodities, specifications & drawings, components, valves & fittings, covered hopper cars, coatings & linings, stenciling & placards, terminology, regulatory agencies & industry associations, and more.

Repair Customers

Repair customers can now login and access current shop status information, create automatic reports, display action alerts and view customer requirements. Also, the secure version of our shop car request tool has fast and easy instant-view drop-down menus for your convenience.

September 2002 Enhancements

Shop Car Request (Procor Link-Net® only)

We are working to ensure the Link-Net® Shop Request facility is the best, quickest and easiest way to shop your car(s). The following upgrades help you provide the necessary car-shopping information with a minimum of computer keystrokes:

  • Shop multiple cars with one request (when all cars share the same requested shop, reason for shopping, return disposition and last contents).
  • Select reason for repair from our checklist of options.
  • Review outstanding projects from the lists we provide for you. (login required)
  • With the click of a mouse, choose from drop-down lists (of disposition, special instructions and last contents information). We get this information from your other recent car-shopping requests. (login required)
  • Skip over customer-contact data, which we automatically input from the new Account Information facility. (login required)

Account Information

This profile identifies you (by name, title, e-mail address, phone numbers and password) and populates Link-Net® and our other corporate information systems. For instance, the new Shop Car Request facility uses some of the data to populate the Customer Contact portion of the request.

User ID and Password Recovery

If you forget your User ID and/or Password, use our new secure recovery procedures for quick retrieval.

August 2002 Enhancements

Outage Gauge Tables

We improved the Outage Gauge Table screen layout and you can now print the tables in PDF (Portable Document Format).

Time-Out

We increased the time-out period from 30 to 60 minutes. This means that your session can be idle for up to 60 minutes before Link-Net terminates it and requests you log in again.

Log Out

We added a log out button to the Control Centre to allow you to end your Link-Net session immediately. You may wish to use this function to secure your fleet data when you plan to be away from your workstation for an extended period of time.

May 2002 Enhancements

Automatically Distributed Reports

All automatically distributed reports in PDF format now have an improved layout. Graphics, borders and color have been altered to improve legibility. Any reports you had previously set up in PDF format will now appear in the new look. You do not have to revise anything!

If you currently have reports set up in 'Text' format, we recommend you change to PDF. The change to PDF is optional. Use the AUTOMATIC REPORT MANAGER option to make the change.

Fleet Data: Download and Report

This new facility allows you to download and/or report on all cars in your fleet. Approximately 80 mechancial and lease fields are available for each car. Choose the fields that interest you.

The data comes to you in CSV (Comma Separated Values) file format and can be opened by data bases, spreadsheets, text editors and other software packages.

Reports are in PDF format and exploit Graphics, borders and color to optimize legibility.

Outage Tools

Three 'fleet tools' now exist:

A Car Index lists all cars in your fleet, their outage tables and relevant capacity attributes (i.e., tare weight, load limit and shell capacity).

A Table Index is available in the Mechanical Feature Counts facility. Your fleet's outage numbers are listed with counts of the cars that use the outage numbers.

You can now download your leased fleet details OR download outage details from the combined Procor and UTC North American fleet for car types that match your fleet's profile.

January 2002 Enhancements

Electronic Lease Invoices

Customer-authorized recipients can now view current and historical invoices in Link-Net and receive lease invoices via email. Contact your local sales office to start up your electronic billing option.

Customer Action Alerts

When you log into Link-Net any or all of the following alerts are automatically displayed. All of the alerts are easy to activate or cancel.
- Cars inbound to shop exceeding a specified (by you) number of days. This assists in identifying late cars.
- Revised scheduled release dates. This alerts you to any changes in our car release dates so you can plan car return into your service.
- Cars in shop requiring return disposition. This alert ensures cars are not held by us longer than necessary.
- (Procor customers only) Cars held for customer approval. This minimizes the time Procor holds your cars in its shops.
- Qualifications/tests due this year. This helps you in car maintenance planning.
- Qualifications/test past due. This identifies cars requiring immediate attention.

Distribute reports automatically

Three new reports (for a total of five) are available for automatic e-mails. These are an alternative to logging on to Link-Net to access details. They are:
- Lease Invoice
- Shop Alert (includes the four Bad Order Customer Action Alerts explained above)
- Qualifications/Tests Due (includes the Qualification Customer Action Alerts explained above).

October 2001 Enhancements

Distribute reports automatically

You can now AUTOMATICALLY E-MAIL OR FAX ANY NUMBER OF Bad Order Release Notification and Shop Status Reports TO ANY NUMBER OF recipients of your choice. Just type in the destination e-mail address(es) and/or fax number(s). Link-Net® issues Bad Order Release Notifications and Shop Status Reports at 2:00 a.m. of the date(s) you specify. Also, you can now receive your reports in three file formats: text, PDF (Portable Document Format) or CSV (Comma Separated Values). You decide. PDF optimizes the appearance of your reports. CSV makes your reports compatible with most spreadsheet or databases applications. A PREVIEW button immediately displays your report according to settings you select. A click of the SEND NOW button instantly emails or faxs your report to the destination of your choice.

Find the Automatic Report Distribution feature on the Link-Net® Car Control Center web page.

Sort and Download Data

Use new SORT buttons and connected drop-down menus to display the data in a way that is most useful to you. DOWNLOAD buttons bring displayed data right to your workstation.

Download Outage Tables

You can now download individual Outage Tables to your workstation in a CSV (spreadsheet compatible) file format.

Trace as many cars as you wish

You can now trace your cars SINGLY (CAR-BY-CAR) OR IN GROUPS OF CARS. You can also trace cars, inbound and outbound by shop, on the Shop Status Report page.

Customize Security Levels

You can now DEFINE DATA PROFILES that make mechanical, outage and bad order data available to employees, with or without leasing data, as your business deems necessary.

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