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Wabtec Corp. Aug. 12 inked a $12 million contract with Australia's Queensland Rail to supply integrated electronic controls and braking systems as part of the railroad's program to upgrade 68 heavy-haul electric locomotives used for coal service.


Wabtec will replace existing pneumatics brake rack and driver consoles with integrated electronic systems, including on-board computers, screen-based instrumentation, EPIC electronic brakes, TrainLink-ES end-of-train control, PowerLink distributed power control, DATACORD event recording and CommLink wireless LAN to automate data downloading.


The electronic-brake rack would enable Queensland Rail to control its conventional pneumatics brake systems and wireline-based ECP (Electronically Controlled Pneumatics) braking in accordance with Association of American Railroads specifications; the communications system would enable the railroad to support ECP-brake-equipped cars in the future.


Wabtec Railway Electronics will manufacture the equipment at its Germantown, Md., and Calgary, Alberta, plants. Wabtec Australia will provide application engineering, integration testing and field support.


Wabtec plans to begin delivering equipment in mid-2003 and complete delivery in 2006.