I'm one of the people responsible for naming points along the right of way for one of the US Class 1's (yes, "naming" - we're still doing it). Basically, each carrier has it's own internally logical convention. Plus, there are names and there are names. For example, some point known in the timetable as "Deadman's Gulch" (I don't think my company has that name, so I'm safe there), might also be known as CP T192. That, to a CTC dispatcher, would be "Control Point on subdivision T at roughly MP 192".
Also, something as simple as a city gets very complex. For example, using a couple of merged roads, the CNW's definition of where Chicago is located (the depot at Madison Street) is very different than what the GTW's definition was (somewhere north of Blue Island), even though both pointed to the same SPLC. To further confuse things, multiple stations for a carrier, as published in the OPSL, can point to the same SPLC. The NS, for example, publishes five different station names under the same SPLC for Chicago (380000000).
Aren't you glad you asked? Oh, what's a SPLC? That's a copyrighted number, called a Standard Point Location Code, published by the National Motor Freight Traffic Association (yes, the truckers), defining locations in North America and Mexico (although Transport Canada has it's own set...).
