How to log a sighting

Logging a sighting means writing down that you saw a particular car: the reporting mark, the number, and when. A place is optional. Notes are optional. A photo is optional. You need a free account because the sighting is yours to edit, and because the public page should not turn into an anonymous dump of locations.

The useful path next to a train is the scanner. Take the photo, confirm the mark and number, then use Log a sighting. The mark and number come with you. You can also open the form directly and type them.

A freight car is not a person, but a precise, immediate dot on a map is still a live location of someone's shipment. RailcarID does not show live location. A sighting stays off the public car page for 24 hours. The coordinates stored for the sighting are rounded to about a kilometer. The public page and the map round them again, to about 10 km. Your account email is not on the public page.

You can skip the place entirely. A date and a car number are still a sighting. If you do attach a place, it should be where you were allowed to stand. The form can read a photo's location or the phone's location only after you ask it to.

After the delay, the sighting joins the car's public history: a date, an approximate place, and the notes you marked as shareable. The map can show that same rounded place. Following the car can send you one digest a day when a new public sighting or a newly indexed photo shows up. None of that is a tracking feed.