Eastern Railroad Discussion > How Would a Class I Railroad Locate One Unit?

For example, let's say NS has to bring Unit #9877 into Enola for an inspection. How would they locate this one unit across their whole system? Do all units have trackers? Thank you

Yes, all locomotives are tracked.

Each unit (and car) has a tag on it. There are scanners that read these, and send the data into the computer system. It's called AEI. There is an office in Atlanta that manages locomotive movements, and routes them toward a shop when inspections are due.

As for location, they are tracked pretty much like cars are tracked. The computer knows whether they are in a train or at a specific terminal. The computer also knows when it was last inspected, when it is next due for inspection, any problems that has been reported, and as mentioned, those that control power moves can see all this information when assigning power to trains to make sure they get to inspection points when required.

the locomotive center in Atlanta GA , Personal in "the cage" track all units on NS.

GPS and AEI tags work

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Here is how BN used to do it. This was copied from "BN News" right after their 1970 merger, showing the large magnetic board in St. Paul used to track all the locomotives on the system. I believe they used this magnetic board until the early 1980's when computers took over the task of displaying where the locomotives were located, the direction they were pointed, and other information used by those who coordinate their assignments.

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czephyr17, that is one of the coolest pictures I have ever seen.

We had something similar on the Indiana and Ohio Railway. We had a magnetic dry erase board that had squares to put a train ID, locomotive(s) and crew names using magnets then we would write the loads, empties, tonnage and length with a dry erase marker. I really don't know if I have a picture of that board or not?

Jim

Thanks for the info and photos. I knew there had to be some tracking system, but I didn't know how

Yeah, its 2017 and everybody uses computers to track things.

czephyr17 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is how BN used to do it. This was copied
> from "BN News" right after their 1970 merger,
> showing the large magnetic board in St. Paul used
> to track all the locomotives on the system. I
> believe they used this magnetic board until the
> early 1980's when computers took over the task of
> displaying where the locomotives were located, the
> direction they were pointed, and other information
> used by those who coordinate their assignments.

I wonder when BN shut down its magnetic board? I was present at the shutdown of N&W's in either late 1986 or early 1987 (can't remember). I was also present at the shutdown of ATSF's in 1991 (I'm thinking late September). I'll make the claim of being the last person to move a magnet on the Santa Fe board while it was in service.

Everything is in the computer. Very easy to go in and look up whatever you need to know about an engine. All maintenance or trouble hits areally also in there so if the unit has an issue everyone can see. Sometimes that gets out of hand. My favorite was "fumes in cab when operating long hood forward with windows open, engine produces fumes in notch 1 or above."

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