Know whether your rail leg still makes the vessel. Every day.
The Rail Edition adds your inland ramps to the daily report. It shows the rail cut-off at each origin ramp, when the box reaches the port, and whether that still clears your vessel's CY cut - so a rail leg that no longer makes the sailing is flagged before you rail-bill, not at the ramp.
Built for inland-ramp exporters and the drayage teams that rail their boxes to the coast.
The rail commit chain
You lock the whole chain at rail-bill - days before the box clears the port cut
For an inland shipper, order to the port cut is one committed sequence. The moment you rail-bill, the load and the move are set - but the box then rides the train for days while the port cut can still move. The Rail Edition shows whether it still clears that cut before you commit.
You lock the whole chain at rail-bill - days before the box clears the port cut, and while that cut can still move. The Rail Edition shows whether the box still makes the vessel, so you adjust while there is still time - instead of finding out at the ramp.
Illustrative example. The lane, buffer, and lead times shown are for illustration; the rail leg commits roughly 10 to 14 days out on long lanes, before the port cut has finished forming. Source: TradeLanes eLane analytics.
The rail schedule holds. The deadline it has to hit does not.
- Carrier rail dates do not match the railroad'sThe rail ERD and cut-off the ocean carrier shows are often not what the railroad's own published schedule says. Teams end up trusting the railroad and ignoring the carrier.
- The port cut moves after you rail-billYou commit the box to the ramp against the CY cut you booked. When the ocean carrier advances that cut, a box that was on time is suddenly short - and it is already on the train.
- Published transit overstates the runway"Four days, not five, like they say." A day of slack that is not really there is a connection you planned to make and did not.
- You find out at the rampThe miss surfaces when the box is already inland - when the only options left are per-diem, storage, a split, and a roll to the next sailing.
The Rail Edition shows whether each leg still clears. For the ramps you select.
Six capabilities. One daily report. The rail leg stops being a blind spot.
Per-ramp rail cut-off and rail ERD
The rail cargo-receiving window at each origin ramp you select, shown in the ramp's own time zone - not the port's.
Rail-to-port ETA and Buffer
The rail cut-off plus the lane's transit tells you when the box reaches the marine terminal. Buffer is the gap to the vessel's CY cut. A negative buffer is a miss, and it sits at the top of the report.
Grid coverage and lane coverage
In Canada, the report reads each railroad's per-vessel published grid into Vancouver (CN, CPKC). In the U.S., it covers structural lanes on BNSF, UP, CSX, and NS.
Railroad-authoritative
The Rail Edition reads the railroad's own published schedule - the source your team already trusts over the carrier's rail dates when the two disagree.
Slack ranking
Your legs are sorted by how thin the buffer is, so the tightest connection is the first thing you read - not buried in a full republished schedule.
Timestamped record
Each leg is captured with the schedule as it was published that morning, retained for per-diem and demurrage dispute defense.
Same port. Same week. Four different buffers.
Four rail legs into the same port, one week. The rail schedule held on all four. The slack did not.
| Rail leg | Line | Transit | Buffer to CY cut | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago (LPC) → Los Angeles | BNSF | 5.0 days | +2 days | Clear |
| Cicero, Chicago → Seattle | BNSF | 7.3 days | +1 day | Tight |
| Memphis → Long Beach | BNSF | 5.7 days | -1 day | Miss |
| Greer, SC → Charleston | NS | 1.0 day | +4 days | Clear |
Same port, same week. The rail schedule held on all four. One still misses the vessel - because the port cut moved, not because the train was late.
Who uses the Rail Edition
One report. Two places the rail leg is decided.
See the miss from your desk - not from the ramp.
Your box commits to the ramp a week or more before it sails. The Rail Edition shows whether each leg still clears the vessel while there is still time to change the plan.
- Rail cut-off and buffer for every ramp you ship from
- Misses flagged before you rail-bill
- Railroad-published, in the ramp's own time zone
- Connects to Safe-to-Commit when the port cut behind the leg is moving
Know which boxes make the connection before you dispatch to the ramp.
The Rail Edition shows the rail-to-port buffer on each lane, so a box that will not clear the vessel is not the one you move to the ramp first.
- Buffer by lane, ranked tightest-first
- Railroad grid, not carrier-aggregated rail dates
- Daily report for the dispatch team
- Connects to Safe-to-Dispatch when the gate decision needs higher confidence
The Rail Edition shows the buffer. Ava tells you when to commit against it.
A thin buffer is a signal. Whether to commit the box is a decision.
When a rail leg is tight, the Rail Edition shows it. But it does not decide whether to commit the box, hold for a later sailing, or book an alternative. That is what Ava does. Ava takes the buffer the Rail Edition surfaces and evaluates it against the vessel's cut behavior and the runway your lane has left - with a record of what you knew when you decided.
Add your ramps to the report.
Track the inland ramps you ship from. See which legs clear the vessel this week - and which do not.
Add My Ramps See a Sample Rail EditionHow to read the buffer. The rail buffer reflects the structural gap between a lane's scheduled cut-off and your vessel's CY cut, using the railroad's schedule as published. It is not a reliability score. Train delays or carrier reroutes can compress this window after the fact. Rail cut-off movement is directly observed today on CN and CPKC into Vancouver; U.S. lane buffers are built from each railroad's published transit. Source: TradeLanes eLane analytics.
Exporters and logistics partners already operating on TradeLanes
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