Technology Train Touts Total Integration

A big highlight at National Manufacturing Week in Chicago last month was the U.S. debut of Siemen's Exider technology train. Nine cars long, the vehicle, which occupied most of the southern end of the exhibition hall, helped communicate various cutting-edge automation solutions the company offers the manufacturing community.

By Staff March 1, 2004

A big highlight at National Manufacturing Week in Chicago last month was the U.S. debut of Siemen’s Exider technology train.

Nine cars long, the vehicle, which occupied most of the southern end of the exhibition hall, helped communicate various cutting-edge automation solutions the company offers the manufacturing community.

How it arrived in the Windy City was interesting in and of itself. Last year, the train disembarked from Germany through Russia and finally on to Asia. The plan, then, was to take a slow boat from China to the United States. Best laid plans go astray, and instead, it was loaded aboard massive Russian military cargo planes. Clearance, however, was not granted right away into Chicago and it ended up taking a pit stop in Hawaii.

The company then hoped to bring the train into the city in grand style, but local railroad officials were not cooperative.

As a result, according to Siemen’s Serbiene Aledering, rubber wheels were installed and the cars had to be ramped into the hall and loaded on a special platform. The train, now, however, is back in true locomotive form and is tracking along the East Coast with stops scheduled for New York and Boston this month, and then onto Detroit, Houston and Mexico in April and the West Coast in May.

Although heavily oriented toward manufacturing and process automation, car No. 8 is a valuable stop for interesting trends on integrated power and building automation solutions being implemented in buildings such as hospitals and universities.

For more visit www.sea.siemens.com .