North American freight railroads uniquely combine safety, speed and efficiency in transporting large amounts of freight long distances over land. Prompted by railroad commitments to reduce emissions, and looming stricter in-use locomotive regulations, US freight railroads face the challenge of reducing or eliminating the roughly 3 billion gallons of diesel fuel consumed each year. To […]
Category: Systems and Connectivity
Optimizing Efficiency and Cost of Innovative Strategies for Freight Rail Motive Power Energy Supply
North American freight railroads uniquely combine safety, speed and efficiency in transporting large amounts of freight long distances over land. Prompted by railroad commitments to reduce emissions, and looming stricter in-use locomotive emissions regulations, US freight railroads face the challenge of reducing or eliminating the roughly 3 billion gallons of diesel fuel consumed each year. […]
Data Integration and Informatics for Track Asset Management
Rail infrastructure is a critical component of the national economy, with track systems representing some of the most valuable assets in the railroad industry. Key datasets, including track layout data, condition monitoring data, repair and maintenance records, are frequently siloed across departments, limiting their combined utility in streamlining track asset management and safety analyses. This […]
Positive Train Control with Asymmetric Authentication and Key Management
Positive Train Control (PTC) is a combination of systems and protocols that provide wireless communication between railroad operations, locomotives, and wayside equipment. Its original purpose is to ensure that trains comply with track speed restrictions and signals by providing this information to a control system inside the locomotive that can take corrective action. Because the […]