Softrail offers three products to help track rail vehicles movements into, out of, and within a rail yard. These products can operate independently from each other or can be combined to create a system. The three products are a wayside reader, a portable reader and a yard tracking software program. The AI2006 Network Yard AEI Reader is a low cost wayside AEI reader used primarily to identify rail vehicles entering and leaving a yard. It can send information on rail vehicles movements directly over a network as a file attached to an email, a file sent to an FTP server and as a data stream sent to Softrail's AEI Rail and Road Manager program. Files can be in the T94 format or comma delimited text. The AI2006 Reader is easy to install and maintain. The price for this system un-installed ranges from $14,000 to $20,000. The AI2006 Reader can be customized to meet individual user requirements. (click here for more information) The SmartScan Model 2400 Portable AEI Reader is a handheld reader used primarily to collect track inventory. It can send track consist information directly over a network as a file attached to an email, a file sent to an FTP server, and as a data stream sent to Softrail's AEI Rail and Road Manager program. Files can be ether in the T94 format or comma delimited text. The SmartScan Model 2400 Portable Reader can communicate with a user's network over 802.11b wireless LAN, a direct USB cable connection to a computer running the Windows operating system and over a GPRS network using a Bluetooth enabled cellular telephone. The portable reader ranges in price from $4,500 to $5,000. The SmartScan Model 2400 reader can be customized to meet individual user requirements. The SmartScan Model 2400 Portable Reader was also designed to allow other suppliers to develop their own software applications that can run on the portable reader. (click here for more information) AEI Rail and Road Manager is a program that graphically shows the locations of rail vehicles on a map of a yard. The user can draw the yard map using this program. The AEI Rail and Road Manager program interfaces over a network to both the AI2006 Network Yard AEI Reader and the SmartScan Model 2400 Portable AEI Reader. It will automatically move rail vehicles to the appropriate tracks based on information received from these two types of readers. Users can also manually drag and drop rail vehicles from one track to another. The AEI Rail and Road Manager program is a multi-user system. Multiple users on a network can view the yard map and see the real-time locations of the rail vehicles. The price of the AEI Rail and Road Manager program varies with the size of yard and the number of wayside readers. A limited version of this program is included with the SmartScan Model 2400 Portable AEI Reader and can be downloaded for free from our web page. The starting price for this program with a 200 rail vehicle limit is $2,000. The starting price for this program with a license to operate with one wayside AEI reader is $7,000. There are no licensing fees associated with interfacing to the portable readers. (click here for more information) Email or call Tom Levine at 888 872-4612 if you have any questions.