Car spotting is precise positioning of a
railroad car
A railroad car, railcar (American and Canadian English), railway wagon, railway carriage, railway truck, railwagon, railcarriage or railtruck (British English and UIC), also called a train car, train wagon, train carriage or train truck, is a ...
for loading/unloading.
When a
locomotive
A locomotive or engine is a rail transport vehicle that provides the Power (physics), motive power for a train. If a locomotive is capable of carrying a payload, it is usually rather referred to as a multiple unit, Motor coach (rail), motor ...
pulls a train of
freight cars 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)
* 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 each ...
References
Rail transport operations
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