Hartzler learns about GE intelligent control systems
By Jack Ventimiglia
The Daily Star Journal Online
Tuesday, August 26, 2014

U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler toured the General Electric Transportation facility, 601 N. Enterprise Drive, Monday, and learned about the company’s intelligent control systems for trains and planes.

“International trade is very important and we need to make sure and continue at the federal level to have policies in place so that companies like GE here can sell their products overseas,” she said.

GE employs about 150 people in Warrensburg and has manufacturing facilities worldwide, company officials told Hartzler.

“What we do here … is both domestic and international work,” GE North American Region leader for project sales, Jeff Baker, said. “We do a lot of the electronics that go on locomotives as well as all the stuff that you see along the track. Everything you see out there when you’re waiting at a crossing you can pretty much be assured that we’re the ones making you wait.”

Baker’s comments drew laughs from several people.

“It’s a safety thing,” Tom McGovern, GE Government Relations Program manager, Washington, said.

“It’s a good thing that you’re waiting,” Baker said.

“That’s true,” Hartzler said.

Baker said the company just won a contract worth about $125 million to do electronics for Singapore’s subway system.

“The signaling devices that we have control how fast trains go and essentially work like a traffic light out there along the track,” Baker said, adding, “Back in the (train) office, there’s a dispatch system for the entire railroad. We build those and the onboard electronics that do all the safety work to ensure that trains are going the right speed and not going past any red signals.”

Hartzler asked if GE is the leader in intelligent control systems for trains.

“We have about 80, 85 percent of the market here in North America. We’re obviously the biggest one here. Internationally, it goes down quite a bit,” Baker said, adding, “We’re trying to break into the rest of the world and that’s the tougher part.”

Rail demand is growing in this country, Hartzler said.

“I know up in North Dakota you hear about the huge trouble that they’re having trying to get the farmers’ products to market with all of the other issues, with the oil,” she said.

“BSNF (railroad) told us this year they’re going to spend an extra $6 billion in infrastructure because of the oil by rail. That has a huge impact for us. It obviously increases our sales every single day,” Brown said.

While touring the facility, company officials directed Hartzler’s attention to what looked like a large and rusted metal locker. GE made the container look old for a buyer in Mexico who does not want to draw the attention of thieves and vandals who might have an interest in scrapping or destroying the control systems inside.

“We build some houses with Kevlar in them to withstand gunshots,” Ed Johnson, plant tech service leader, told Hartzler. “When you consider what’s inside of these, a gunshot takes out a piece of electronics.”

McGovern said GE information systems are important to air transportation, too.

“We basically (have) all the data that’s coming off the engines into our control center,” McGovern said. “We can, on the aviation side, and the engine side … know exactly when that engine’s going to fail.”

Detecting engine issues early, he said, allows an aircraft company to take the plane out of service for repairs at a company hub rather than at a remote location at a higher cost.

“It saves them time and money,” McGovern said.