Patent ID: 7428453

Claim:
A railyard management system comprising: a train motion sensing mechanism capable of detecting an incoming train entering a geographic area defined by a railyard, and capable of detecting the incoming train coming to a stop in a subyard of the railyard; a computer-readable storage medium; and a processing mechanism coupled to the computer-readable storage medium; wherein, in response to the train motion sensing mechanism detecting the incoming train entering the railyard, the processing mechanism is programmed to store an entry time in the computer-readable storage medium indicative of a time at which the incoming train entering the railyard was detected by the sensing mechanism; wherein, in response to the train motion sensing mechanism detecting the incoming train coming to a stop within a receiving subyard of the railyard, the processing mechanism is programmed to store a stop time in the computer-readable storage medium indicative of a time at which the incoming train came to a stop in the receiving subyard; and wherein the processing mechanism is programmed to calculate an incoming train latency time by subtracting the entry time from the stop time, and to store the incoming train latency time in the computer-readable storage medium as an incoming train latency time record.