LOS ANGELES — Parallel Systems, the company developing battery-electric railcars that operate autonomously, will launch testing this month on two Georgia railroads, Parallel said on Monday (April 14, 2025).
The company also announced it had raised an additional $38 million in funding, bringing its total to date to about $100 million.
“Federal Railroad Administration approval and closing our Series B funding round are two critical milestones for Parallel Systems,” Matt Soule, Parallel founder and CEO, said in a press release. “Together with our strategic partnerships within the rail industry, Parallel Systems is now poised to fully commercialize our battery-electric rail system, starting with the FRA-approved project in Georgia.”
In January, the Federal Railroad Administration approved a request from Parallel, Georgia Central, and Heart of Georgia Railroad to test its self-propelled intermodal flatcars, but the company had not previously identified when testing would begin. [See “FRA approves first autonomous rail car test program,” Trains News Wire, Jan. 20, 2025].
The seven-phase testing program on the two Genesee & Wyoming short lines will begin with testing on 2 miles of track on the Heart of Georgia that will be disconnected from the rest of the railroad. It will gradually progress to platoon operation of the cars with loaded containers over a 160-mile segment of the two railroads.
The company said the latest funding will be used to “propel commercialization” of its project with railroad partners in the U.S. and Australia, where it has also demonstrated its product [see “Parallel Systems demonstrates …,” News Wire, Dec. 7, 2023].
Parallel said it already had a backlog of more than 300 of its autonomous railcars with leading railroads and expects to launch commercial operations in 2026. The company said it is scaling production of its Generation 3 equipment and related autonomy software train control systems, and has tested its technology’s compatibility with positive train control in collaboration with Union Pacific.
One more thought: how well will these cars work within mile long trains, traveling up and down mountains and on curves? Would want to test this first, I would think.
Might work for retail railroading at the terminal end of an industrial lead or terminal railroad. I could also see this might work for a large industry to aggregate loads to be picked up by trunk lines. This would prevent the need for automating coordination with the trunkline. These vehicles are akin to rail based drones.
How many calls to “911” will be made when people see one or two cars mysteriously moving on the tracks?
Big flashing billboards that say “Autonomous Trains in Motion!”
For now, the signs will flash “Anonymous Trains In Motion”
Who lines the switches and unlocks the derail device? The UP can’t handle little Amtrak trains, how will they sneak these little things in?
I would assume the business would unlock the derail and notify Parallel they are ready. When the car reaches a switch point, it will signal Parallel or the short line, it is ready to be switched in. Of course this assumes they have remotely controlled switches into their line, or they allow Parallel to link the car to the switch automation and when it reaches the junction, the signal reaches the switch via the link in the car.
It’s a good question.
I see this as being an asset on short lines or portions of Class 1’s routes that have been demoted to local service only (no scheduled long trains).
I can think of one line where this would work, where a former mainline is now supporting a grain operation in one town and several small manufacturers in a nearby town.
Rather than sending a switching crew out to the different towns and switch all the industrial leads, turn the table and have Parallel’s solution send the cars to the Class 1 siding in a yard 25-30 miles away. As soon as it reaches readiness, attach it to the next consist coming through and send them on their way to the major yard for classification.
A 300-car backlog? PTC testing with Union Pacific?
Frankly, I still think this is a silly idea, taking out most of the inherent advantages of trains by having many small powered units instead of a few larger ones. Plus having only single-stacked containers vs double-stacked (less of a problem in low-clearance lanes). But evidently, someone sees potential with this idea, so I guess we’ll see what happens.
The need to aggregate individual shipments into economical size trainload lots is the Achilles Heel of railroading. Such aggregation is costly, unnecessarily increases transit times, introduces unreliability to transit times, and a few other really bad things that I can’t think of right now.
Autonomous rail movement systems will reduce and/or eliminate the need for aggregation. Thereby making rail transport more competitive with truck transport. Which would be a good thing.
Wonder how well such a system would operate over Raton and using other lightly used routes.