An award-winning, innovative rail-car management tool for planning daily train consists and tracking maintenance cycles.

The adoption of digital technologies by the rail industry – known as ‘digitalization‘ – is streamlining business processes, improving operational performance, enhancing safety, and saving money. The net result will be more dynamic, responsive, and functional transit systems for operators and passengers in the digital era.

Modernizing Rail Operations

Many rail operations and processes are still run in an analog way that utilize inefficient, legacy methods of documentation such as spreadsheets, emails and text documents. These are simply not sustainable in the modern age as agencies seek to digitize their processes. An example of this inefficiency could be found within the rail yards of Amtrak California in the San Francisco Bay Area. Each day yard administrators need to arrange the make-up of train sets – or ‘consists’ comprising a locomotive and multiple passenger cars – and convey this information along with each train’s route schedule to a wide range of operational staff and train crew within Amtrak, the rail agencies of CCJPA and SJJPA, and third party contractors. This had been accomplished using an extensive Microsoft Excel workbook that was emailed to all respective personnel with the various organizations. During any given day the make-up of consists would likely change as passenger cars were swapped out for re-routing, maintenance or other operational reasons. As a result the Excel workbook would be updated and resent by email. While well-established over many years, the analog process was cumbersome, inefficient and outdated, and required drastic overhaul to align with the digital aspirations of the rail agencies.

Xentelligent TrainManager application

Process Digitalization

Xentrans identified an opportunity to digitize the train management process through the implementation of a cloud-based web application called TrainManager that enables yard administrators to configure train sets using a simple yet highly visual app interface, while staff and crew end-users have read-only access. To maintain consistency with the legacy Excel output, users can download a PDF of weekly configurations by day as a distributable and printable PDF. In addition to journey schedule (‘turns’) and preventative maintenance (PM) information, TrainManager shows details about each passenger car in any given consist including seating and bicycle capacity, Wi-Fi communications equipment, and cleaning routine.

TrainManager has significantly improved the daily rail car management process while making it easier for yard administrators and end-user to access vital information in a sortable, searchable way. As new technical systems are introduced to train sets, they can be incorporated within TrainManager for easier visualization, while the maintenance features can be expanded for greater app functionality and usefulness to ground staff.

Winner of Metro Magazine Innovative Solutions Award (Rail) 2025

In September 2025 Xentrans and Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority were jointly awarded an Innovative Solutions Award (RAIL) by Metro Magazine for the implementation of TrainManager at Amtrak California. The full article can be read here.

We’re elated to see TrainManager recognized for what it is: not just a solution to a spreadsheet problem, but a platform with multiplicative impacts on operational efficiency and data reliability. Innovation was overdue in this aspect of our industry, and we’re happy to have taken this step.

Jim Allison, Senior Manager of Planning, CCJPA – Oakland California.

NEXT STEPS > TrainManager can be customized for any transit agency seeking to transform day-to-day management of vehicles, schedules and maintenance. Contact us for more information and to schedule a live demo.

Download TrainManager flyer (PDF, 2.9MB)