When I Was Workin’ On the Railroad – Part IV, Locomotive Utilization

The most interesting computer system I worked on at the C&NW was the Locomotive Utilization (LU) System. Unfortunately for me, I never saw it to its completion because I left the company to return to school full time to earn a Master’s Degree.

I was one of the key designers and implementers. The railroad was very interested in maximizing the usage of their locomotives. Given the expense of these assets, it was foolish and expensive for the railroad to have idle locomotives. This would even lead to the purchase of more locomotives and such purchases add up very quickly considering that they cost around a million bucks even back in 1981.

The LU System had built into it a roster of the C&NW locomotives as well as locomotives from other railroads that might run on C&NW rails – such as those of the Union Pacific Railroad. The system also knew of all of the locations on every bit of the railroad along with mileage from certain other locations. Users of this system would enter in information about what locos were on what trains and when they went by these various locations. They could use this system to help maximize the locos usage. It also kept track of maintenance requirements so that they could make sure locos got to their maintenance points on time.

For locos of other railroads, the system kept track of horsepower miles and horsepower hours. If a 3000 horsepower locomotive went one mile, that was 3000 horsepower miles and if a 3000 horsepower locomotive spent an hour on the C&NW, that was 3000 horsepower hours. It was these measurements that were used by the railroads to repay each other for pooled locomotives. Every time a UP loco spent time and miles on the C&NW, a similar C&NW loco was supposed to spend the same amount of time and miles on the UP. If an imbalance occurred, one railroad would have to pay the other in cash.

About 20 years later, in about the year 2001, I met a fellow who learned of my interest in railroads. He told me that he knew someone who worked for the Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha. I told him that I worked for the C&NW back in 1980 and 1981. He said that his friend had worked for the C&NW also during that timeframe. It turns out that I actually worked with this person in Chicago. I thought the odds were against that.

I contacted him via email and he informed me among other things that the LU system had worked very well in its day. It’s long gone now as is the C&NW as an independent railroad. It’s part of Union Pacific and there is no doubt a new generation of computer system for the tracking and utilization of locomotives.