Glossary

A freight car having a floor, without housing or body. Flat cars are frequently used to carry trailers or oversized/odd-shaped commodities that are not subject to damage from the elements.

When a container is picked up off of the ground and mounted on a chassis for street or highway transport.

Charges assessed to a shipper when the railroad is required to provide an unnecessary or extra flip. An example of this is when a private container is grounded off of a train and no chassis is available at that time. A flip charge is assessed because a flip is required at a time after the train is unloaded.

The period allowed the owner to accept delivery before storage or detention charges begin to accrue.

A defined geographic area, typically a city or port area, similar to a free port, although can exist within the confines of a DC or manufacture facility, which is considered outside the USA as it relates to the collection of customs duty, import and export taxes and other cargo admissibility restrictions. Free trade zones are created to improve the competitiveness of warehousing, manufacturing, processing and assembly businesses. Free trade zones can eliminate duty, defer duty or transform dutiable amount through transforming individual parts into a different custom classification through an assembly or manufacturing process.

The process of combining multiple separate consignments into a single lot or container load constituting a more economical shipping unit for shipment over all or some of the transportation segments. Upon completion of the “consolidated” shipment segment, the process must be reversed- the individual consignments must be separated out for delivery or on-shipment to the respective individual consignees.