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September 2026
Compiled by Michael Popke
Traditionally, yard operations are disconnected from revenue. Crews track car inventory on spreadsheets or paper switch lists; revenue runs in a separate system entirely. The result is slow, low-visibility yard movements and unbilled or late-billed work: demurrage, spot charges, storage or custom switches performed in the field but never reaching the invoice, Cedar AI officials said in an email.
Designed to place yard operations and billing on one platform, Cedar AI’s Automated Rail Management System (ARMS™) provides yard teams real-time, track-by-track visibility and digital job management, replacing clipboards and spreadsheets, they said. The moment a crew completes a job, that event flows automatically into ARMS’s revenue engine.
The same platform runs rate tariffs, demurrage billing and AI-driven switch optimization through Optiswitch™, plus Cedar Mobile, which enables crews to handle jobs, switch requests and car orders from any handheld device, including when offline.
Texas North Western Railway (TXNW) hosts one of parent company TNW Corp.’s two One-Stop Supercenters; it’s the largest privately owned rail-car storage and switching facility in the United States, according to TXNW. The facility features more than 180 miles of track and capacity for 12,000-plus rail cars. TXNW runs ARMS across its railroad to unify yard inventory and billing into one view, Cedar AI officials said.
While most rail software providers sell yard management, billing, mobile tools and analytics as separate products, ARMS runs it all from one system, so the same data that tracks a car also generates the invoice, they said.
Progress Rail, a Caterpillar company, offers the Advanced Rail Technology (ART) Ecosystem, an integrated framework that enables railroads to sense, connect, decide and act across their operations.
Built on Progress Rail’s portfolio of wayside inspection, onboard systems, yard automation, locomotive technologies, network optimization and digital solutions, the ART Ecosystem is designed to transform operational data into intelligent action. By connecting assets, infrastructure and operations, railroads gain the visibility and automation needed to improve safety, increase capacity, optimize resources and enhance network performance, company officials said.
Railroads traditionally have used one type of locomotive for mainline operations and another for yard operations. This limits locomotive utilization and adds variability to the overall service product with locomotive swaps. Talos Command (CMD) is a remote command solution that addresses the existing limitations by serving as a platform for progressive levels of automation while seamlessly transitioning between yard and mainline operations, Progress Rail officials said.
By integrating camera video streams, machine vision and advanced stop protection, Talos CMD safely expands operational awareness for operators of all skill levels while removing the need for yard-specific infrastructure, they said.
Meanwhile, the PowerView Detect AI vision cameras monitor for personnel foul of track, vehicles or equipment encroaching on active tracks and track anomalies, alerting supervisors in real time to developing hazards. PowerView Sense adds proactive fuel visibility across the locomotive fleet, enabling scheduled refueling.
PowerView Connect brings together a cloud portal that shows live location, alerts, video and operational data in one place, company officials said. And the PowerView Suite brings real-time intelligence to yard operations across four integrated products: the event/video recorder, Detect, Sense and Connect.
The first all-electric locomotive in Canada was supplied with a custom control system by TMV Control Systems Inc. in Cambridge, Ontario, in cooperation with Innovative Rail Technologies.
The GP15 switcher for Cando Rail & Terminals under the Li-Ion 2025 project uses lithium-ion batteries as the prime mover while retaining standard traction motors, TMV officials said.
TMV’s control system manages power conversion, battery systems, temperature regulation and overall locomotive functions, delivering a zero-emission performance in the switching yard. Expectations include an about 60% reduction in energy consumption, hundreds of tons of carbon-dioxide emissions per year and maintenance savings, company officials said.
Lithium-ion battery bank technology in rail-yard switching represents an important step toward lower-emission industrial rail switching in Canada and globally, combining proven locomotive platforms with modern control and battery technology, they said. Cando Rail & Terminals’ all-electric GP15 received Emissions Reduction Alberta funding and has been tested in Manitoba and Alberta, including in cold-weather conditions.
Industrial Networks continues to develop its INet SMRTag™ System, an Internet of Things (IoT)-based solution designed to automate rail-car inventory and provide real-time asset visibility throughout rail operations.
Building on its INet SMRTag technology introduced last year, Industrial Networks has developed the INet SMRTag Track Reader, a new configuration designed to make automated rail-car tracking accessible to an even wider range of operations, company officials said.
The INet SMRTag Track Reader delivers the core benefits of the INet SMRTag System while offering simpler, faster installation and a more cost-effective approach to implementation. Using SMRTags attached to rail cars and strategically positioned SMRT Anchors, the Track Reader configuration automatically captures rail-car location and movement throughout the yard. This provides operators with continuous, real-time visibility into their assets without relying on manual inventory processes, company officials said.
By replacing manual inventory processes with automated data collection, the technology can help operations reduce the time employees spend locating and recording rail cars while improving the accuracy and availability of yard information. With greater visibility into where rail cars are located, teams also can make faster, more informed operational decisions and maintain a more accurate view of their assets, company officials said.
The Track Reader configuration expands the flexibility of the INet SMRTag System, allowing Industrial Networks to better accommodate different yard layouts, operational requirements and budgets, they said.
Traditional rail yards run on paper switch lists, radio calls and “tribal knowledge,” all of which can break down as volume grows or staff turns over, GeoMetrix officials said. GeoMetrix Yard is designed to replace all of that with a single, live digital picture of the yard that every dispatcher, yard worker and manager can view at once.
Instead of walking tracks or calling around to confirm car locations, staff members see the entire yard — every track, spot and rack — on screen in real time, company officials said. Yard layout views and “ghost” mode (which shows current vs. prior positions) enable crews to respond instantly instead of discovering a bottleneck after the fact.
RFID scanning, and handheld and tablet AEI readers replace manual car-ID entry, reducing the mis-spots and data entry mistakes that can cause reshuffling, missed loads or wrong bills of lading. Drag-and-drop reassignment can turn a fleet change into seconds (and not a walk-through and a phone call), company officials said.
GeoMetrix’s tablet-based inspections capture data, photos and validation checks directly at the rail car and are tied to that car’s live profile, making them visible systemwide the moment they’re saved.
Because inspections, switch lists and bills of lading are generated from the same dataset, information never gets stuck with one shift or device, company officials said. The net effect: less time chasing information, fewer mistakes and a yard that keeps working as people, shifts and volumes change, they said.
Miller Ingenuity’s patent-pending ZoneGuard yard protection system, a recipient of the Railway Engineering-Maintenance Suppliers Association’s Innovation award, warns workers within a rail yard of any incoming track vehicles or cars being pushed into the facility.
ZoneGuard’s train detection modules (TDMs) and train alert modules (TAMs) are mounted throughout a yard to form a communication network. The TDMs and TAMs are configured based on a customer’s specific track profile such as line of sight, maximum allowable speed, curves and more, company officials said.
Once a train is detected, the system sends a signal to the worker’s wearable devices that send alerts of the approaching track vehicle with an audible, physical and visual alarm.
ZoneGuard’s patented combination of diverse sensor technologies ensures track vehicles are detected with consistency and accuracy, helping workers stay alert without unnecessary false warnings and safe from missed detections, company officials said.
Additionally, the system will only alert the workers within the yard if there is movement coming into the facility; it will not alert workers if they are performing their own switching operations or if rail traffic is leaving the facility, according to the company. The technology can detect directional motion while also preventing detections of non-track vehicle movements such as animals, pedestrians, weather events, automobiles and detections in multi-track environments.
In addition, workers are protected throughout the entire yard, according to the company. The radio signal from their wearable devices will stay with them and connect to the nearest TDM or TAM.
Michael Popke is a Madison, Wisconsin-based freelance writer.
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