Patent ID: 8095253

Claim:
A method for controlling locomotive power plants on a plurality of locomotives in a consist comprising the steps of: transmitting, from a fuel efficiency improvement device located on each locomotive in the consist, an initialization message including an identifier of the fuel efficiency improvement device, and a power level and fuel consumption rate corresponding to each power throttle setting for a respective locomotive; determining a fuel efficiency improvement device to act as a lead fuel efficiency improvement device for all fuel efficiency improvement devices in the consist based on the serial numbers of the fuel efficiency devices in the consist; determining by the lead fuel efficiency improvement device an operator throttle setting selected by an operator on a locomotive in the consist; determining an operator consist power, the operator consist power being a total combined power that would result if the locomotive power plant for each locomotive in the consist were operated in accordance with the operator throttle setting; determining by the lead fuel efficiency device alternative throttle settings for each of the locomotives in the consist using power levels and fuel consumption rates from the initialization messages, the alternative throttle settings resulting in an alternative total consist power within a threshold amount of the operator consist power and an alternative fuel consumption rate lower than a fuel consumption rate that would result if the locomotive power plant for each locomotive in the consist were operated in accordance with the operator throttle setting; transmitting the alternative throttle notch settings from the lead fuel efficiency improvement device to respective fuel efficiency devices in the consist; and applying an alternative notch setting to a respective locomotive power plant by each of the fuel efficiency improvement devices in the consist.