Pilot doesn't understand how socal [sct] doesn't know if he is on the GORMAN4 or CASTA4 departure. A...

Narrative:

We are filed to ZZZ from lax via the CASTA4 departure. As we contacted ground to taxi he initially said taxi 24L but then changed his mind and said 'we'll let you go off 25R tonight. So taxi to 25R via bravo.' no mention was ever made of a different departure procedure. And this is not unusual because the same thing happened to us the night before. So we're still on the CASTA4 which makes a right course change to 311 degrees at mkgee. That altitude cap is usually 9000 but socal thought we were on the GORMAN4 and he gave us an altitude climb to 13000. So when we made the right turn at mkgee were headed right toward his inbound traffic stream so he screams turn left to 250 and then he starts trying to tell us we're supposed to be in a 250 heading because we're on the GORMAN4. We pulled out the pre departure clearance and read it to him. He then told us there was no separation violation but they were looking into it.my question would be how is it that socal doesn't know what departure a flight is on. If we've been cleared via the CASTA4 and he thinks we're on the GORMAN4 we've got a major problem.I will avoid this in the future by asking the tower controller to verify the departure procedure if there's a runway change.

Original NASA ASRS Text

Title: Pilot doesn't understand how SoCAL [SCT] doesn't know if he is on the GORMAN4 or CASTA4 departure. Aircraft turns northbound and controller vectors it back to a 250 heading.

Narrative: We are filed to ZZZ from LAX via the CASTA4 Departure. As we contacted Ground to taxi he initially said taxi 24L but then changed his mind and said 'We'll let you go off 25R tonight. So taxi to 25R via Bravo.' No mention was ever made of a different departure procedure. And this is not unusual because the same thing happened to us the night before. So we're still on the CASTA4 which makes a right course change to 311 degrees at MKGEE. That altitude cap is usually 9000 but SoCal thought we were on the GORMAN4 and he gave us an altitude climb to 13000. So when we made the right turn at MKGEE were headed right toward his inbound traffic stream so he screams turn left to 250 and then he starts trying to tell us we're supposed to be in a 250 heading because we're on the GORMAN4. We pulled out the PDC and read it to him. He then told us there was no separation violation but they were looking into it.My question would be how is it that SoCal doesn't know what departure a flight is on. If we've been cleared via the CASTA4 and he thinks we're on the GORMAN4 we've got a major problem.I will avoid this in the future by asking the Tower Controller to verify the departure procedure if there's a runway change.

Data retrieved from NASA's ASRS site and automatically converted to unabbreviated mixed upper/lowercase text. This report is for informational purposes with no guarantee of accuracy. See NASA's ASRS site for official report.

Attributes
ACN	1262581
Time
Date	201505
Local Time Of Day	1801-2400
Place
Locale Reference	LAX.Airport
State Reference	CA
Environment
Flight Conditions	VMC
Light	Night
Aircraft 1
Make Model Name	Medium Large Transport
Operating Under FAR Part	Part 121
Flight Phase	Climb
Route In Use	SID CASTA
Flight Plan	IFR
Person 1
Function	Pilot Flying Captain
Qualification	Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP)
Events
Anomaly	ATC Issue All Types Deviation - Altitude Excursion From Assigned Altitude Deviation - Procedural Clearance Deviation - Track / Heading All Types

Pilot doesn't understand how socal [sct] doesn't know if he is on the GORMAN4 or CASTA4 departure. Aircraft turns northbound and controller vectors it back to a 250 heading.