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Spotlight PEPPOL BIS Billing 3.0 The EU e-invoicing mandate is here — France Sept 2026, Belgium Jan 2026, Germany 2025.

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Foundations

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Standards

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Flagship messages

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Tools

X12 425 — Rail Waybill Request

The 425 is the rail waybill request: a shipper or industrial party requests a carrier to issue a waybill for a car or group of cars.

Purpose

The 425 documents the request to issue a waybill: shipper reference, consignee, equipment (car), STCC commodity, requested route, payment terms (prepaid / collect), special instructions. It is the upstream B2B instrument of a rail-freight shipment.

It triggers carrier-side waybill creation and dispatch of a 404 (Rail Carrier Shipment Information) in response. Acknowledged by 997, it is typically followed by a 426 (Rail Revenue Waybill) on the billing side.

Envelope structure

The 425 travels within the three X12 envelope levels (ISA/IEA, GS/GE with functional group RW, and ST/SE). Didactic example in release 004010:

x12 example-425.x12 
ISA*00*          *00*          *ZZ*ACMEGRAIN     *ZZ*BNSF          *260514*0830*U*00401*000000425*0*P*>~
GS*RW*ACMEGRAIN*BNSF*20260514*0830*1*X*004010~
ST*425*0001~
BX*00*R*PP*ACMEGRAIN*WBR-2026-001*N*FT*20260514~
N1*SH*ACME GRAIN CO*92*S-0001~
N1*CN*ACME MILL INC*92*C-0042~
N7*HOPPER*BNSF-552032*MT~
F9*FT*FORT WORTH TX*USA~
D9*KC*KANSAS CITY MO*USA~
LX*1~
L5*1*WHEAT GRAIN*STCC*0113310~
L0*1*96000*N*0*BU*0~
SE*10*0001~
GE*1*1~
IEA*1*000000425~

Common segments

  • Header — ST, BX (General Shipment Information), DTM.
  • Parties — N1 (SH, CN, FW).
  • Equipment — N7 (rail car).
  • Routing — F9 (Origin Station), D9 (Destination Station).
  • Lines — LX loop with L5 (STCC), L0.
  • Summary — SE.

Common pitfalls

  • Prepaid / Collect: BX03 drives downstream billing; mismatch with the commercial agreement = re-bill by the carrier.
  • Station identifier: F9 / D9 must carry an AAR FSAC or SPLC code, not a free-text city name; otherwise automatic routing fails.
  • Car availability: empty-car supply is modeled via a 422 (Equipment Order), not 425 — the 425 assumes equipment is ready.

Documentation

The code 425 and the name Rail Waybill Request are public and listed on x12.org/products/transaction-sets. The complete structure of loops, qualifiers and code lists is distributed by DISA via the proprietary Implementation Guides (TR3). ediverse.io covers only public concepts, the envelope and didactic examples.