Patent ID: 7257471

Claim:
A communications device positioned wayside in the yard for routing a locomotive to a desired destination in a rail yard through a track layout comprising a plurality of rail tracks connectable to one another in response to a respective switching combination applied to a plurality of remotely controlled switches for interconnecting one track to another track, said communications device comprising: a memory configured to store information indicative of the tracks in the yard and the switches interconnecting said tracks; a user interface for displaying information indicative of the tracks in the yard and receiving a user input regarding a set of desired tracks to be interconnected to set a route for enabling the locomotive to reach the desired destination in the rail yard; a processor responsive to the user input to identify the switches to be actuated to interconnect the set of desired tracks and the positions for the switches to make the interconnection of said tracks; a transmitter configured to wirelessly transmit a switching combination to be applied to respective ones of the plurality of remotely controlled switches to implement said at least one route; and a receiver responsive to information received from said respective ones of the plurality of remotely controlled switches regarding a status of the switches for interconnecting the tracks to set the route for reaching the desired destination.