Rail car tracking number

[Dr. ice]

Does anyone know where the dealership needs to look to determine the rail car tracking number. I know my truck is coming out of Mexico via Union Pacific and my dealer seems stumped by the question. Chevy chat said they can no longer give this info but the dealer can. Help appreciated.

[brokesilverado]

Not sure you can get that information. You wouldn't believe how many cars & trucks used to get parts stripped off while the train was moving until the newer auto racks with the steel plates with holes. Only thing is it helped stop the strippingredients of parts while moving. Now when they stop that's another story.

[redwngr]

I won't arrive any quicker even if they could track the location.

[CounterMeasure]

Does anyone know where the dealership needs to look to determine the rail car tracking number. I know my truck is coming out of Mexico via Union Pacific and my dealer seems stumped by the question. Chevy chat said they can no longer give this info but the dealer can. Help appreciated.

 

Dealer can call the dealer support center (DSC), which can then get the rail car number as needed. My understanding is it takes abit of legwork by the DSC to get the info, and then you have to know the train company moving it to even track it. For example, it would likely be FerroMex until it gets close to the border. That said, depending on your location, it may end up getting to you by boat anyway. And as said above, having that information is not going to get it to you any faster.

 

To give you a bit of reference on transmit speeds, it took about 4 days for my truck to get from Silao, MX, up to Laredo, TX, and then to San Antonio, TX, where it was unloaded at UP's autohub. From there, 2 days more to get loaded on an auto transport and carried 75 miles to my dealer.

[Dr. ice]

Thanks CounterMeasure. You provided some very good information. I know my ability to trace the shipment won't speed it up but it will allow me to adjust my busy travel schedule to accommodate pick up at the dealer when it arrives. Also, it seems silly that it's easier to track a $5 putchase from Amazon than a $55,000 truck. My truck will travel to Chicago via Union Pacific before being loaded on a truck and transported to Mount Pleasant, Iowa. I know from being a member of the C7 forum that the rail delivery can take weeks in some instances. Sounds like you got your truck in 6 days which seems fairly quick. I will be happy with two weeks due to my greater travel distance. Thanks again!

[ZmanII]

My truck was shipped on March 12th and still has not arrived at the dealership. It should get there any day now. It took 2.5 weeks to get to the final rail yard in Pennsylvania. It is awaiting a car hauler to deliver it to the dealership, a little over an hour from the rail yard it is in.

 

I must say, it is interesting to see the whole process. My truck was built 13 days after the order was placed, waited 3 days to be loaded on a train in Mexico, than spent 17 days on the train(s) to get to PA, near Philly. It's been in the last train yard for 4 days already waiting for transport to the dealership. My dealer says they have 4 trucks in the yard waiting to be delivered to them.

[Dr. ice]

My truck was shipped on March 12th and still has not arrived at the dealership. It should get there any day now. It took 2.5 weeks to get to the final rail yard in Pennsylvania. It is awaiting a car hauler to deliver it to the dealership, a little over an hour from the rail yard it is in.

 

I must say, it is interesting to see the whole process. My truck was built 13 days after the order was placed, waited 3 days to be loaded on a train in Mexico, than spent 17 days on the train(s) to get to PA, near Philly. It's been in the last train yard for 4 days already waiting for transport to the dealership. My dealer says they have 4 trucks in the yard waiting to be delivered to them.

How have you kept up with this level of detail?

[CounterMeasure]

How have you kept up with this level of detail?

 

The way I did it was to bug the hell out of GM online CS often for the 4-digit status code for my order number, which will tell you which state its at. From there, you can track when it goes from, say, 4200 (shipped) to 4300 (intermediate delivery), which basically means "shipped on a train, then unloaded and waiting for auto carrier".

[redwngr]

Of course, progress can 'stall' at any point in the route.

[ZmanII]

I got my info from the GM chat people. Some were more helpful than others. I asked them my order status and where it was last spotted at. They told me when it left the plant, then I caught it in Missouri, Ilionois, Kentucky, and a couple of different locations in Pennsylvania. When it got closer to Pennsylvania, they gave me an ETA of when it would get to the last yard. It arrived a day later to the yard than the first eta they gave me. Some of the gm chat people were forth comin with info, whereas other you needed to ask if they knew where it was last spotted. Sometimes their internal system was down, so they couldn't tell you, so I would ask again the next day. I was asking for my order status every 2-3 days originally, but now that it arrived at the last yard, I have been asking daily. I don't know if this helped or not, but I would always wish them a good day at the end of the conversation and if they didn't have additional info from the previous chat session, I didn't give them a hard time. It almost seemed like some of them didn't know how to determine where my truck was last 'checked in' at, so I would try again the next day.

[ZmanII]

I was able to spot many of the yards on the satellite view of Google maps. They usually told you the yard name which you could determine what town it was in by searching the web. Some days, it only traveled an hour or two in my direction. With the initial progress, I thought I would have picked it up a week or two ago. It didn't arrive at the dealership today, so I doubt I will get it this weekend.

[Dr. ice]

GM chat is no longer giving out status codes or shipping information.

[wandern]

GM chat is no longer giving out status codes or shipping information.

 

I ask them "May I have the status code for order #abc123", and most of the reps respond with the status code immediately. Some of them are hesitant and give an insipid answer, but when I ask "and what is the status code for that?", I have gotten the code every time.

[Dr. ice]

I have been getting my status code from Chevrolet Chat up until they changed their practice a few days ago yo no longer provide it.

[Dr. ice]

Update: the rail code needed to trace your truck in on the order workbench. My truck was shipped out of Mexico about 5 days ago and is currently in East St Louis on its way to Chicago where it will be loaded on a truck and delivered to Mount Pleasant Iowa. Pm if you want the Union Pacific automated phone number needed to trace your truck.