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The rail industry’s 40-year-old legacy UMLER system finally is in mothballs. Yesterday, Railinc announced it successfully launched the new Umler™ system, which processes vital information about rail equipment, trip plans, air-brake tests and equipment repairs. The system tracks data on more than 2 million pieces of rail equipment, including 1.4 million rail cars and 25,000 locomotives.

Railroads, equipment owners and shippers now have real-time access to the information through an easily accessible and easy-to-use Web application, said Railinc, an Association of American Railroads subsidiary. The result: better communication and collaboration among rail partners to foster better asset management and improved safety, Railinc officials said in a prepared statement.

Railinc originally planned to launch the new Umler system on July 25, then postponed the introduction until Aug. 31. On Sept. 12, cutovers began for Umler's largest users, including several equipment owners, leasing companies and Class Is. Cutovers will continue until year’s end.

Representatives from every Class I and many large rail equipment owners helped develop the system during the past seven years. Overall, more than 2 million equipment records were transformed during the Umler system’s development, Railinc said.