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3/14/2025
Rail News: Communication and Signal
Technology update: Rail safety products 2025
Compiled by Michael Popke
Aldon Co. Inc.
Founded in 1904, Aldon Co. Inc. manufactures railroad safety products and tools. The company’s suite of products includes a variety of standard safety signs, sign holders and lights. Aldon also can produce custom signage at its in-house sign shop. The company can furnish more than 80 Class I signs made to standard-approved drawings, Aldon officials said in an email.
Other product offerings include multiple styles of railway derailers, rerailers and accessories. Aldon can produce permanent hinged derails for various track sizes that include both manual lift and automatic sign holders. It also offers four models of portable derails, as well as retractable hinged derailers. After a derailment occurs, Aldon can get railroads back on track fast with Straddle, Burlington, McCarty and Big Red styles of rerailers, company officials said.
To keep rail yards and lines running efficiently, Aldon offers specialized track tools for inspection — including gauges, levels and rolling gauge readers — as well as numerous rail handling track tools and products for maintenance and repair. They include rail benders, gauge control rods, jacks and stabilizers, as well as steel and urethane wheel chocks.
Railspire
Railspire’s Network Controlled Locomotive (NCL) is an AI-driven locomotive driving technology designed to execute commands with precision and ensure full compliance with operating rules, mitigating human-factor incidents and enhancing operational visibility, company officials said.
NCL’s Locomotive-to-Everything (L2X) connected operating platform enables locomotives to function as fully integrated nodes within the rail operating network. L2X delivers:
- Locomotive-to-infrastructure: Direct connectivity with switches, wayside systems and back-office technologies;
- Locomotive-to-network: Real-time data exchange using standard IP network protocols with rail systems and equipment.
NCL combines an operational safety overlay with an AI-driven physics engine to enhance situational awareness, enforce operating rules and reduce variability in train operations. By integrating precision navigation, a track network database, and real-time rules enforcement with AI-driven analysis of train dynamics, NCL helps prevent miscommunication and human-factor incidents, company officials said.
Together, these technologies shift the focus from manual throttle and brake control to movement authority, compliance and automated risk detection to improve consistency, safety and efficiency across a network.
FTS Tools
FTS Tools develops and supplies safe solutions for track maintenance tools through cordless battery-powered technology, company officials said.
Based on feedback from the field and Class Is, track workers want to reduce tripping hazards from hydraulic hoses, reduce tool weight to lessen fatigue and prevent long-term back injuries caused by heavy labor-intensive track equipment such as spike mauls, claw bars and other hydraulic track maintenance tools.
To that end, FTS has created a line of battery-powered tools driven off of the Milwaukee battery platform. These include spike pullers, tie drills, jacks and rail drills — all of which are lighter, hose-free and easier on track workers’ backs, company officials said.
One example is the battery-powered FTS EZ-Jack. Lightweight and easy to transport, the EZ-Jack allows workers to raise and lower track with a simple pull of the Milwaukee impact trigger, which eliminates the need for bending, company officials said.
LILEE Systems
LILEE Systems has introduced SafeRail™, a collision avoidance system with work zone and yard limits compliance designed to enhance safety across freight, passenger, commuter, rapid transit and mine railways.
SafeRail provides end-to-end safety by equipping locomotives, maintenance vehicles, back-office systems, wayside equipment and worker terminals with real-time monitoring and centralized management, company officials said. The system integrates onboard systems with visual display units for real-time proximity alerts, overspeed protection and work zone limits compliance to enhance operator awareness and prevent collisions.
SafeRail also connects a centralized system with rolling stock, wayside equipment and worker terminals for continuous monitoring, dispatching, movement authorization and temporary speed restriction enforcement. It automates workflows and digitizes communication between dispatchers, foremen, lookouts, watchmen and vehicle operators to prevent unauthorized entry into work zones, as well as enhances operational efficiency.
The system also provides dual-redundant, low-latency and highly reliable networks for seamless information transmission and continuous situational awareness.
MaxAccel
MaxAccel’s SafeTrack Mobile™ app functionality continues to evolve as a key component of the company’s SafeTrack™ platform, company officials said. SafeTrack drives safety training, certification/qualification management and regulatory compliance across a wide range of freight, passenger and railroad contractor operations.
SafeTrack Mobile extends SafeTrack’s web-based functionality through a dedicated mobile app available for both iOS and Android operating systems. It allows supervisors in the field to capture such tasks as efficiency testing, check rides, Part 243 OJT, safety audit checklists and job safety briefings in both cellular-connected and disconnected modes, company officials said.
The corresponding productivity gains give supervisors more time to work with employees to ensure rules knowledge and safe operating practices are being observed, they said. Additionally, the new compliance goals dashboard delivers real-time visibility into a testing supervisor’s monthly testing plan.
Performance trends also can be captured through SafeTrack Analytics™. Report generation and audit capabilities are provided through the report-generation engine.
Employees also have access to a local library of electronic rulebooks, timetables, current operating bulletins and general orders managed by SafeTrack Mobile. Targeted communication capabilities facilitate new information or version updates for transmission to specific employees, crews or departments in real time.
Miller Ingenuity
Miller Ingenuity’s ZoneGuard is an electronic roadway worker protection system designed to protect railway workers in active work zones and rail yards.
It works with existing roadway worker protection procedures and provides a secondary form of work crew protection by delivering advanced warning of approaching track vehicles. The system also helps eliminate human error factors — such as distractions, complacency, inexperience and miscommunication — that are frequent contributors to close calls and accidents, company officials said.
ZoneGuard features a patented combination of diverse sensor technologies designed to ensure track vehicles are detected consistently and accurately. The flexible system can be configured to a customer’s unique operating environment and easily integrates with a railroad’s existing safety rules and procedures, company officials said, adding that it doesn’t have a required onboard component for operation.
The ZoneGuard product line comprises the portable kit, a fixed system and a yard protection system. Durable and lightweight, the portable kit can be set up in minutes, company officials said. The fixed system is permanently installed and provides 24/7 train tracking capabilities with no configuration or setup required. The yard protection system — the 2023 winner of the REMSA Innovation Award — warns rail yard workers of any incoming track vehicles or cars being shoved into the facility.
ZoneGuard can satisfy requirements as a redundant form of protection for rail transit workers in accordance with the new FTA Final Rule 49 CFR Part 671 for Rail Transit Roadway Worker Protection, company officials said.
Pintsch North America
North American railroads transport over 2 million tank cars of hazardous materials each year, many of which are delivered to petrochemical plants and other industrial facilities. That’s one reason why it’s helpful for operations and safety personnel to know when rail cars are being delivered to their facility — especially in large sprawling facilities such as refineries or at power plants with long industrial spurs, Pintsch North America officials said. In some cases, security personnel must manually open gates to facilitate access by rail crews.
Designed to alert plant personnel to the imminent delivery of rail cars, the Pintsch Annunciator is installed at a distance ahead of the plant entry point; a double wheel sensor is clamped to the rail, which detects rail traffic moving into the plant. The Annunciator then can send a text message, email or telephone call to alert plant personnel of the incoming traffic.
Contained in a compact, weatherproof enclosure, the Annunciator unit can be powered from 120-VAC or via solar power. All communication is via the cellular data network. Pintsch provides the necessary back-office functions and updates the programming (alert phone numbers, email addresses and more) as needed for a nominal monthly fee, company officials said.
The Annunciator also can alert operations personnel or dispatchers when cars are delivered or moved from remote interchange points, or when on-track equipment is arriving at a locomotive or car shop.
PS Technology
Qualification compliance with FRA Parts 242 and 243 requires railroads to create and track items for maintenance-of-way and signal workers in the field. To address this need, PS Technology released an update to its tracking tool, QualPro, which enables railroads to self-serve and easily create, manage and track compliance for MOW, signal teams or any other craft needed, company officials said.
The self-serve modules allow railroads to develop their own training rulesets, testing schedules and notifications of recertifications, whether FRA or company mandated.
To streamline the process, QualPro can integrate with crew management systems to further safeguard railroads from compliance infractions, company officials said. In the case of a decertification event, notification automatically will be synced to the crew system and disable the employee from being called for any position related to the decertified area.
For managers overseeing staff requiring compliance, the QualPro system can create daily, weekly or monthly schedules for fields tests automatically. The capability further insulates railroads from missing tests that would create a decertification event due to inadvertent testing or compliance omissions, company officials said.
Railhead Corp.
The Railhead Trainman Lantern was developed and patented in 2020 with safety, convenience and durability in mind, company officials said
A key safety feature of the lantern was inspired by a close call from an experienced railroader, who was involved in an incident during which his arm was caught in the lantern’s handle as the equipment started moving. The railroader, who avoided serious injury, shared his experience with Railhead, which subsequently incorporated the break-away handle into the lantern, ensuring that it would safely detach in such a situation, company officials said.
The easy-to-carry RH-TL2020 model is 35% lighter than traditional 6V lanterns; it also provides 650 lumens and an industry-leading 2,667-feet beam distance, they said. The lantern features a 30-pound pull magnetic base, allowing it to be secured to metal surfaces for hands-free operation.
A ratcheting handle with eight adjustable positions adds flexibility, while the rubber “glow-in-the-dark” photoluminescent base ensures visibility in low light conditions. Additionally, the lantern’s IP66 water resistance is designed to withstand tough environments.
Strato
Strato’s C10P60 knuckle pin has an increased chamfer on the end of the pin for easier installation, especially when replacing a pin in coupled cars. The increased chamfer reduces the effort and force needed to fully install the knuckle pin into the coupler assembly, reducing the strain and likelihood of injury, company officials said.
Two cotter pin holes, with a 90-degree offset from each other, provide greater ease of installation for the cotter pin by ensuring there is an accessible cotter pin hole with little to no rotation. This eliminates the need to awkwardly pry or force rotation of the knuckle pin and creates an easier and safer working environment, company officials said.
VisioStack
By harnessing cutting-edge technology, including AI analytics, VisioStack’s RailLinks® platform automates data pipelines and provides advanced visualizations and predictive capabilities across operations, company officials said. The platform is designed to improve efficiency and empower companies to make data-driven decisions that enhance risk management, reduce costs and increase safety.
RailLinks supports every level of asset management, from real-time tracking to long-term maintenance planning. The platform prioritizes quick data searches, easy access to critical insights and the ability to leverage vast datasets for actionable intelligence, company officials said.
The platform offers robust mobile support, integration with real-time track sensors and next-generation track analytics.
Michael Popke is a Madison, Wisconsin-based freelance writer. Email comments or questions to prograil@tradepress.com.
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