Patent ID: 7021589

Claim:
A retrofit system for controlling a consist of at least a first locomotive and a second locomotive, said consist having a master control for indicating a desired operating mode of the consist, a communication link for providing command information corresponding to the desired operating mode from the master control to a first locomotive control and a second locomotive control, and wherein the first locomotive control is responsive to operator input provided to the master control to control the operating mode of the first locomotive, and wherein the second locomotive control is responsive to operator input provided to the master control to control the operating mode of the second locomotive, said operator input indicating a desired operating mode from a plurality of operating modes, said retrofit system comprising: a performance profile for storing previous operating time information for each of the first and second locomotives, said performance profile being coupled to the communication link; a first processing module coupled to the communication link and responsive the desired operating mode from the master control to selectively provide a modified operating mode to the first locomotive control, and wherein the first locomotive control is responsive to the first modified operating mode to determine a mode of operation of the first locomotive; a second processing module coupled to the communication link and responsive to the desired operating mode from the master control to selectively provide a modified operating mode to the second locomotive control, wherein the second locomotive control is responsive to the second modified operating mode to determine a mode of operation of the second locomotive, and wherein, in at least one mode of the plurality of operating modes, the modified operating mode of the second locomotive is different as compared to the modified operating mode of the first locomotive; and wherein the first and second processing modules access the performance profile to determine the operating mode of the first and second locomotives, respectively, as a function of the previous operating time information of each of the first and second locomotives.