Speeding up track authorities: Union Pacific is using a state-of-the art wireless traffic management tool to improve communication between roadway workers and dispatchers. From: Railway Age | Date: February 1, 2004 | COPYRIGHT 2004 Simmons-Boardman Publishing Corporation. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan.  All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group.Copyright information

It's a broiling 95 degrees F on a busy morning in mid-summer. The main line of your railroad is scheduled for some heavy tonnage today. You, a track inspector, are waiting at a grade crossing to move your hi-rail vehicle onto the rails to conduct a routine FRA mandated inspection on 10 miles of right-of-way.

But things are far from routine: Yesterday, a heat kink snarled traffic for several hours, so the operating people are under pressure to work the scheduled trains ba...