Short-line, industrial & terminal rail
Every crew.
Every rule.
Every day.
RailOps puts the day's work, the day's rule and the day's paperwork in one place a crew can actually use — on a phone, tablet, or computer. Simple enough that nobody needs a week of training on it, and strict enough that the things that matter cannot be skipped.
Easy to use
Every list is a dropdown off your own roster and your own track names. The crew picks; they do not spell. A conductor is filing on it the first day.
Safe and by the rule
The shift will not close until the engine and cars are tied down. The whole rulebook is loaded — one rule a day, briefed and signed for.
Builds a crew
The plant, the crew and the office read the same row. Close calls get shared with no blame, so the next crew learns from them instead of repeating them.
Everything they need
Gate codes, spot instructions, today's rule, the switch list, who is on the job — on the screen before anyone has to ask for it.
What is running today
Three deployments, one database
Not a roadmap and not a mock-up. Three separate sites, running today, sharing one Postgres database — which is why a customer marking a car released appears on your crew's screen instead of in tomorrow's email, and why a conductor's exam result is already on file when their supervisor looks for it.
RailOps Portal
Rail Customer Builder
Clearline Protocol Training
All three are access-controlled, reached through clearlineprotocolrail.com — we open them for a scheduled walkthrough rather than leaving a live railroad's data on the open web. Everything below runs right here, no login required.
02 · Deployment one
RailOps Portal
The yard on one screen, counted in real time rather than tallied at shift change. Crews work it from a phone or tablet in the field, the office runs it on a computer — and everyone keeps working when the signal drops, because every entry queues locally and sends itself when the radio comes back.
- Live countsRealtime subscriptions, not a nightly rollup
- Works offlineLocal outbox; a form in a dead zone is never lost
- 18 screensGrouped by how the work runs — explorer below
- Switch listsBuilt from waybills, not from memory
- AnalyticsDwell, efficiency and car-days by customer
Try itTap every button in the sidebar — each screen tells you what it is for and who uses it, eighteen of them in five groups.
- Installs like an appOne tap in the sidebar puts RailOps on the home screen or desktop — its own icon, full screen, no address bar
- Phone, tablet, or computerSame screens everywhere; nothing to sideload, no app store, no IT ticket
- iPhone & iPadApple routes installs through Safari, so there the button shows the two taps instead: Share, then Add to Home Screen
- Still the same appInstalled or in the browser, it is one system — updates arrive on their own, and offline entry works either way
03 · The screen crews actually use
What a crew submits, and how
Most of a railroad's paperwork is filed by someone standing next to a car with one glove off. Submit is four tabs — Daily Report, Switching Crew, Report a Delay, Rail Map — and the daily report itself branches into the four shapes a day actually takes. Every field below is a field a crew sees — and the same screens run on a phone, a tablet, or the computer in the office.
Try itSwitch the tabs, pick a report shape, and stamp the steps in order — the gating is real, and the shift will not close out of sequence.
Try itPick an industry and watch the checklist rebuild itself — a plant with no derail is never asked about one.
Industry
On arrival
Before completion
The checklist is not decoration
Every industry carries three flags — does it have a gate, does it have a derail, does it handle TIH. The form reads them and asks only what applies. A crew at a plant with no derail is never shown a derail box to tick past, and a crew at one that has a derail cannot file the move complete until it is back in place.
Which means the record is real
When an investigator asks who restored the derail at Houston Fuel Oil on the 14th, the answer is a row with a name and a timestamp on it — not because someone remembered to write it down, but because the shift could not be closed without it.
Why it gets filled in
A form only gets used if it is faster than the radio. Every list on this screen is a dropdown off your own roster and your own track names — Shell Siding, Lubrizol, Battleground, Track 971 — not free text a clerk retypes later. The crew picks; they do not spell.
And it works with no bars
Submit is the reason the offline outbox exists. A daily report finished inside a plant with no signal is written locally and sent the moment the radio returns. The crew sees it accepted either way, so nobody fills the same form twice.
04 · Every shift starts here
The Accident Prevention Briefing
A daily safety huddle that leaves a record. The office builds the day's briefing from a rule, a scenario and a short quiz; the crew signs in, answers, and can share a close call. It is the difference between a toolbox talk somebody remembers and one you can produce two years later.
Try itSet your crew and sign in, reveal the scenario debrief, take the crew challenge, and share a close call — the whole huddle is live.
Set your job and crew at the start of shift — it carries into your reports all day.
Submitting as D. John (#2211).
Mechanical forces are working on a locomotive on the ready track. Blue flags are up. A hostler needs to move an engine past — and says “I'm not coupling, just rolling by, it's fine.”
Is it fine? Who has authority here, and what's the rule?
Blue flag protection means NO movement on that track, period. Only the employee who placed the blue flag can remove it. The hostler stops and waits, or uses another track.
Rule 5.15 — Improperly Displayed Signals“This rule outlines the requirements for protecting railroad workmen who are inspecting, testing, repairing and servicing rolling equipment…”
Non-negotiable. No exceptions for “just rolling by.”
Job briefing before an interplant move — which of these MUST be covered?
Share a close call so the crew can learn from it. Just-culture — no blame.
How will you apply this rule on today's job? Or — share a time you've faced an incident tied to this rule.
Just culture — no blame
The share-out box says it in as many words: “Share a close call so the crew can learn from it. Just-culture — no blame.” Close calls are the cheapest safety data a railroad will ever get, and crews only hand them over when reporting one cannot be used against them. That sentence is doing real work.
05 · Across the whole app
What the AI actually does
Three jobs, all of them narrow on purpose. It reads paperwork a crew photographs, it answers questions about your operation, and it writes the management briefing nobody has time to write. What it never does is decide anything a railroad is accountable for.
Reads the paperwork
A conductor photographs the switch list they were handed. It comes back as structured moves — sequence, car, load or empty, commodity, hazmat — instead of being retyped at the desk an hour later.
Answers in plain language
“How do I spot cars at Houston Fuel Oil?” “What is the gate code for Magellan?” “How many hand brakes per cut?” Grounded in your own industry notes and rule set, so a new conductor stops guessing or calling the yardmaster.
Writes the briefing
On Analytics and Efficiency: overview, throughput, where time is being lost, open safety items, and four to seven prioritised actions ranked most urgent first. Printable, on demand.
Try itRun the checks and watch a bad transcription get refused — then re-shoot the photo and see it reconcile.
The page printed these totals
The transcription read
Reconciliation
It does not invent numbers
The briefing is handed a snapshot that is already computed. It is told to report what is there and say so when a figure is missing, rather than fill the gap.
It does not correct the list
The transcriber copies what is printed and is forbidden from inferring, completing or reordering. A tidy-looking list that quietly fixed a car number is the dangerous one.
It does not clear the move
Arithmetic decides, not the model. If the cars read do not reconcile with the totals on the page, the list is marked not reconciled and does not go to a crew.
06 · Deployment two
Rail Customer Builder
Let the plant tell you what it needs. The industry models its own trackage down to the numbered spot, records what is loading in each one, and hands you the day's move list. No phone tag, no emailed spreadsheet, no retyping car numbers.
- Spot BoardEvery spot, what is on it and what is in it
- Today's MovesPull, spot, respot, weigh, hold
- HazmatUN number and class on the card, TIH flagged
- Fleet BoardFor yards storing cars for their own customers
- Walled offAn industry login sees its facility and nothing else
07 · Deployment three
Clearline Protocol Training
The training file an inspector can read. Twenty-three modules covering GCOR, radio, switching, air brakes and PTC, each with flashcards and a knowledge check, then a final exam. Every completion is stamped, countersigned and kept.
- 23 modulesEvery rule as an expandable card
- DrillsFlashcards and fill-in-the-blank in every module
- 126 questionsKnowledge checks and the final exam
- Sign-offInstructor countersignature on every record
- RetentionSeven years, per § 243.203
Try itAnswer the three questions — they come from the same bank your conductors are scored on.
08 · How they connect
One move, three screens
The three deployments are not three products bolted together. They read and write the same rows, which is the entire point — follow a single car through a morning.
Customer releases a car
BWC's clerk marks GATX 456342 loaded and released on spot 3, and adds a pull to today's move list. It takes four taps on a tablet in a hard hat.
It lands on Industry Moves
The same row appears on your crew's screen — not an email, not a phone call. The crew acknowledges it, and BWC watches the status change on their own board.
The paperwork writes itself
The move is on the switch list, the dwell clock stops, and the car-day lands on the demurrage statement with its waybill and timestamps already attached.
09 · The number
And then there is the money
10 · Why it holds up
Built for how track actually works
It works with no signal
Crews lose the radio at industries and inside plants. Every write goes into a local outbox first, so a form filled in a dead zone is never lost — it sends itself when the signal returns, and a retry that already landed cannot double-post.
Offline-first PWA · idempotent writes
Customers see their data, and only theirs
An industry login reaches its own facility and nothing else. It cannot enumerate your other customers, and it is shut out of car movements, tracks, yards and jobs entirely. Your staff keep every bit of access they had.
Row-level security · per-facility isolation
Hazmat is handled as hazmat
TIH and PIH cars open a positive transfer on placement and hand-back: car initial and number, who attended, who executed, the location, the exact time, and a signature from both parties — then a PDF for the plant and a copy to you.
49 CFR § 174.85 · chain of custody
The paperwork is the point
Demurrage statements per consignee with every car, waybill and timestamp on the sheet. Switch lists your crews already recognise. Training records with the instructor's countersignature. These are the documents that end arguments.
FRA Part 243 · § 243.203 seven-year retention
Next
Bring your worst yard
Thirty minutes, your track names, your customers, your traffic. If it doesn't survive contact with your real operation, you have lost half an hour.
Takes about a minute. No card, no obligation.