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| Summary / Description | The prior art relates to a modular communication system that monitors rail car movement along a train line. |
| Type of Prior Art | Issued Patents - US |
| Country | United States of America |
| Patent/Application # | US 6511023 |
| Kind Code | United States (US) - United STATES Patent - A |
| Patentee Name | |
| Relevant Pages, Columns, or Lines | |
| URL | http://www.google.com/patents/a... |
| Filing Date | April 10, 2001 |
| Additional Information | The independent claim of the invention can be fragmented into the following flow: 1.A rail car location equipment on a rail car that has a.) a transmitter to transmit the rail car location data to the remote receiver. b.) an electronic tag for identify |
| Notes | This prior art discloses only the first key feature (please see additional information for the list of key features of the invention). Please rely on the prior art US 6,759,951 for the second key feature. |
Excerpt [Col 4 lines 39 - 50]The information stored in a rail car identification tag 11 can be read automatically by tag reader 100 as rail cars 16 pass the tag reader. |
A rail car tracking system (10) comprising: rail car location equipment (12) mounted to a rail car (22), the equipment (12) including a transmitter (26) for transmitting rail car location data to a remote receiver (21) and further including an electronically readable tag (33) attached to the rail car (22) for identifying the rail car (22) to a wayside tag reader (36); and locomotive communication equipment (42) mounted in a locomotive (38) and adapted for communication with the rail car location equipment (12) when the rail car (22) and locomotive (38) are coupled into a common train, the locomotive communication equipment (42) being operative to identify the coupled rail car (22) and including a transmitter (48) for transmitting data to the remote receiver (21), the data including rail car data so that the required data transmission from the rail car transmission equipment (26) is reduced.
| Relevance | [Col 5 lines 09 – 33] Train 14 may have specialized rail cars 17 which have communications transmitters 23. Transmitter 23 then transmits a radio signal containing information concerning the status of rail car 17. Computer 20 is adapted to receive this radio signal and transmitted to computer 26 via communication line 27 or through a radio transmission through antenna 24. |
An integrated rail car tracking system (10) comprising; a plurality of fixed wayside automatic equipment identification (AEI) readers (36) spaced at predetermined locations along a railway for reading identification data from a AEI tags (33) on rail cars (22) passing along the railway; a locomotive tracking system (42) including an on-board GPS system (45) for providing data indicative of the location of the locomotive (38) and a transmitter (42) for transmitting the location data to a remote receiver (19); a rail car wireless message system (12) attached to a rail car (22) for sending periodic messages indicative of the location of the rail car (22), the message system including a GPS system (24) for generating data indicative of rail car location; and a local area network (LAN) established between the rail car (22) and an associated locomotive (38) whereby the rail car location data is transmitted to the locomotive tracking system (42) for transmission to the remote receiver (19).
| Relevance | [Col 5 lines 09 – 33] Train 14 may have specialized rail cars 17 which have communications transmitters 23. Transmitter 23 then transmits a radio signal containing information concerning the status of rail car 17. Computer 20 is adapted to receive this radio signal and transmitted to computer 26 via communication line 27 or through a radio transmission through antenna 24. |
United States