Patent ID: 7814028

Claim:
A method for a rail transportation company to obtain particulars from a customer about a desired shipment of goods and to perform the desired shipment of goods, said method comprising: a. providing an equipment database stored on a computer readable storage medium, said equipment database storing equipment data representing a pool of railcars characterized by railcar owner, the pool of railcars including at least two railcars that have different owners; b. performing an exchange of data between a server system and a remote customer client system over a data network, the exchange of data implementing a railcar ownership selection operation allowing a user at the customer client system to direct the rail transportation company via a graphical user interface to use for the desired shipment of goods one or more railcars owned by an entity selected by the user, the railcar ownership selection operation including presenting the user via the graphical user interface with at least two railcar ownership options that the user can choose from; c. processing with the server system the equipment data stored in the equipment database for constraining the railcar ownership options presented to the user via the graphical user interface on the basis of the equipment data to entities that own railcars in the pool of railcars and that are available for performing the desired shipment of goods, wherein constraining the railcar ownership options provides the user via the graphical user interface with a first railcar ownership option which relates to railcars owned by an entity other than the rail transportation company and a second railcar ownership option which relates to railcars owned by the rail transportation company; and d. performing the desired shipment of the goods using one or more railcars from the pool of railcars owned by the entity selected by the user.