Trains magazine featured LOCOTROL distributed power and GE Transportation's Intelligent Control Systems team in Melbourne, Florida, in its September issue of the magazine in an article titled "Freight Train Unbounded: Distributed Power: It's a Bigger Deal than You Think."
To view the entire article click here.
Here are some excerpts:
Trains with distributed power stop faster, use less fuel, put less wear on rails, and can operate at greater lengths and carry dramatically heavier tonnages than their conventionally operated brethren.
[GE is] the developer and manufacturer of Locotrol, the software that controls 99 percent of the U.S. distributed power market..."
For GE, the greatest opportunities to expand Locotrol exist overseas. The company has already sold Locotrol to seven countries outside North America, and it sees opportunities across the world.
"In China, we've gone from zero distributed power units to 1,000 in three years," [Locotrol Product Manager] Bob Bremmer says. "We're hoping to double that amount in another three years. Then there's India, where they have nothing."
...GE's Locotrol is likely to remain dominant. Though Canac (now Cattron) and Wabtec [see "Locotrol's Competitors," page 33] have offered distributed power hardware, GE's dominance ensures Locotrol is likely to remain the industry standard.
The railroad industry has pulled itself back from the brink by gradually implementing practices that have enabled it to do more with less. In the first decade of the 21st century, distributed power must be seen as the dominant technological advance that's pulling - and pushing - the railroad industry toward greater efficiency.
Reprinted with the permission of Kalmbach Publishing Co., 2010. All rights reserved
