Interchange Tool
Validate a UIC wagon number offline against its own check digit, decode what the number says about the wagon, and see where each gauge pair in our network changes over.
Check a wagon number
A European freight wagon carries a 12-digit UIC number on its solebar. The last digit is a checksum, so a typo can be caught before it becomes a failed lookup.
Where gauges change over
A wagon cannot cross between gauge systems without transshipment or variable-gauge bogies. These are the facilities in our registry that serve both sides of each pair — the places a cross-border corridor physically has to route through.
- Altynkol — Khorgos, Kazakhstan
- Dostyk Border Terminal — Dostyk, Kazakhstan
- Klaipėda Port Rail — Klaipėda, Lithuania
- Košice Broad Gauge — Košice, Slovakia
- Małaszewicze — Terespol, Poland
- Barcelona Can Tunis — Barcelona, Spain
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
No changeover facility in our registry serves both. In practice this pair needs variable-gauge bogies or a road or sea leg between the networks.
How a UIC wagon number is built
The 12 digits stencilled on a wagon's solebar are structured, not arbitrary. Reading them tells you where the wagon is registered and what kind of wagon it is before you look anything up.
| Digits | Field | Example | Meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1–2 | Interoperability | 31 | Exchange regime the wagon runs under |
| 3–4 | Country | 80 | Registering country (80 = Germany) |
| 5–8 | Type | 4575 | Technical characteristics of the wagon |
| 9–11 | Serial | 088 | Individual wagon within the type |
| 12 | Check digit | 8 | Checksum over the first 11 digits |
The check digit follows UIC leaflet 438-2: weight the first 11 digits alternately 2 and 1 from the left, sum the digits of each product rather than the products, then the check digit is whatever brings the total to the next multiple of ten. That is why a single mistyped digit almost always fails — and why this tool is just as accurate offline as it would be with a live connection.
We decode 25 country codes, covering the networks in our operator registry. A valid number with an unrecognised country code is still reported as valid — we say the code is unknown rather than guessing at it.