Union Pacific Railroad Continues Tradition of Technology Advancement, Rolling Out State-of-the-Art Training Trailers
Union Pacific Railroad, an industry leader in technological advancements, has built five mobile classrooms to bring state-of-the-art operations and safety training to locomotive engineer and conductor locations across its 23-state system.
Omaha, Neb., June 14, 2012 Union Pacific Railroad, an industry leader in technological advancements, has built a fleet of mobile classrooms to bring state-of-the-art operations and safety training to locomotive engineer and conductor locations across its 23-state system.
Throughout the years, Union Pacific has used existing or rented training facilities across most its network to prepare employees for their railroad career, introduce them to new technology and provide them with refresher courses. The new mobile classrooms will supplement ongoing training conducted at leading-edge facilities across the Union Pacific network, where employees are introduced to new technology and provided refresher certification courses.
Early training equipment, such as locomotive simulators, were large and heavy – about the size of two large deep freezers sitting side-by-side. Today, through technological advances, those same locomotive simulations can be experienced on a laptop computer with these mobile classrooms.
The four 50-foot-long and one 48-foot-long mobile classrooms use pioneering communication capabilities to sync with Union Pacific's mainframe computer network, accessing the most current instructional sessions and federal training documentation.
Every mobile classroom has seven work stations, each capable of accommodating two employees. Each simulator station includes a webcam feature enabling instructors in Salt Lake City, Utah, and Omaha, Neb., to assist the students at any time.
Trailers are equipped with security features including, streaming video and secure access doors. The secured doors can be opened from the outside by employees entering their employee identification numbers or remotely by instructors in Salt Lake City or Omaha.
Job-specific training software available in each mobile classroom includes:
- Locomotive engineer and conductor instructions;
- Remote locomotive operation - to maneuver locomotives in rail yards with radio control packs; operate switches - the devices that guide a rail car from one track to another; and sort rail cars into different tracks based on their destination;
- Locomotive Engineer Assist Display/Event Recorder (LEADER) or Trip Optimizer – LEADER assists locomotive engineers in reducing fuel consumption while effectively managing trip time and minimizing in-train forces, while Trip Optimizer reduces consumption by automatically controlling the throttle to minimize fuel usage;
- NetControl – a computer system that connects mainframe transportation control systems with one another, such as rail car tracing and train or rail car movements;
- (When finalized,) Positive Train Control (PTC) – a predictive collision avoidance technology currently under development and being designed to stop a passenger or freight train before an accident occurs.