Lat-Lon, a provider of remote monitoring and GPS tracking devices to the railroad and intermodal industries, announced at the Association of American Railroads Damage Prevention Conference in Ponte Vedra, Florida this July that it was in full deployment of its new RailToughTM product line.
     A RailTough™ package consists of Lat-Lon's compact X-8 transmitter that is mounted on an asset (typically a railcar, trailer or shipping container) and one or more remote sensors that communicate via wireless transmission back to the X-8. This unique architecture allows customers to upgrade their systems easily and economically by simply adding or changing remote sensors. Typically, no wiring between the sensor and X-8 is needed. RailTough™ sensors currently available include open door alarms, break wire detectors, hot bearing alarms, truck hunting alarms, and running/not running indicators. "The real benefit of our open architecture system", said Lat-Lon president Dave Baker, "Is that our customers will be able to use their existing X-8 transmitter units to monitor and report information from sensors that haven't even been developed yet. Who knows what information will be of critical importance to people in the shipping industry one, two or even three years down the line".
     The X-8 transmitter at the core of the new RailTough™ product line has been in deployment

in rail service for over a year. They are currently running on a number of Class-1 railways including UP, CSX, and CN. X-8 units have been proven under a wide variety of harsh railroad conditions, including Canadian winters, desert summer heat, and tropical storms. Lat-Lon broke new ground in the tracking and monitoring industry by making the X-8 a completely self-contained, industrially hardened, solar powered unit. Equipped with an optional magnetic mounting system, it can be installed on a rail car or other mobile asset in minutes, and may be moved if necessary to allow flexibility in cars being tracked.
     Lat-Lon employs Aeris.net's patented MicroBurst™ technology, which is embedded in Lat-Lon telemetry units, to transmit data via the under utilized channels of existing cellular networks to Lat-Lon's Web server at a very low cost. Received data can be automatically sent to a customer's fleet management software in addition to being stored on-line at http://www.lat-lon.com. Customers can access location histories, current fleet reports, and view asset locations with an interactive map with color-coded rail lines, towns and other features.
     Lat-Lon, LLC is based in Denver Colorado. It is a member of the Terminal Grain group of companies (established 1918) and is privately held. For further information email john@lat-lon.com.