OMAHA, Neb., Jan. 25 /PRNewswire/ -- Union Pacific Railroad has certified its mainframe computer systems and all of its critical client-server systems Y2K ready. This includes the railroad's Transportation Control System (TCS), the glue for railroad operations. Union Pacific began early on its Year 2000 project with research in 1994, and expects to spend a total of $46 million on the project. The Y2K effort started in earnest in 1996 and is a number one priority at the railroad, involving every department in the effort to provide normal railroad operations on January 1, 2000. The railroad's mainframe and critical client-server systems contain more than 140,000 programs. Each program was tested for compliance with Y2K standards, updated if needed, re-tested, implemented, and certified as Y2K ready, completing the effort in December, 1998. "1999 will be a year of extensive testing of our certified systems with customers, trading partners, and other railroads," said Al Reinberg, senior director on the Y2K project. "We want to do everything possible to be sure we have a smooth transition into the year 2000." "Union Pacific prefers to use the term 'Y2K ready' instead of 'Y2K compliant,'" said Reinberg. "Some vendors may not certify their products to be Y2K compliant, but there are no Year 2000 issues involved in the way that the Union Pacific uses the products. Therefore, Union Pacific can be Y2K ready even though some vendor products may not be compliant." Union Pacific provides public information on its Y2K compliance progress on its web site (www.uprr.com/y2k). That site has links to worldwide Y2K sites which have additional information on the Year 2000 challenge. Moving the world's computer systems to the new millennium has been complicated by the once-standard practice of limiting computer codes to two digits, such as "98," which will be confusing to computers when January 1, 2000 arrives and "00" could be read as 1900 or 2000.

-- skeptical analyst (yeahsure@bs.com), January 25, 1999

Answers

This is the announcement for which ROTFLMAO was really intended.

-- Vic (68rdrunneris@compliant.com), January 25, 1999.

Oh, I'd be inclined to believe this. What else do we Nebraskans have to do, besides watch the crops grow? The state of Nebraska has been on top of their Y2K project, and those Omaha folks should be able to handle their Y2K problems...

-- s (n@eb.r), January 25, 1999.

Yep, s, they did a dandy job of assimilating the Southern Pacific, didn't they?

-- Vic (68rdrunneris@compliant.com), January 25, 1999.

"Union Pacific Railroad has certified its mainframe computer systems and all of its critical client-server systems Y2K ready."

I find this encouraging. That's a pretty strong statement to publish. They must have shot all their lawyers.

Now about those embedded systems...

-- Lewis (aslanshow@yahoo.com), January 25, 1999.

I read this statement with some skepticism, but they are listed under the ITAA's "Success Stories." See http://www.itaa.org/section1.htm

If true, much applause to Union Pacific. For anyone to be a success with Y2K is a truly great achievement.

-- Brett (savvydad@aol.com), January 25, 1999.

If true, it's great news. We need it.

And yet, I too wonder about those embedded chips, and all the power grids that keep the railroad computer networks, turned on.

Exceptional news would be: "Absolutely, the power will remain on, and this is specifically why..."

Diane

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), January 25, 1999.

"Y2K ready" is hardly the same as "Y2K compliant" -- certainly does not mean fully remediated. This is merely legal "weaselese" (or is that weasel legalese?).

-- R. L.Dabney (rebel@csa.com), January 25, 1999.

From what I've read, the Southern Pacific mess was only partly due to computer systems.

This is the sort of news I like to see. There's no need to disbelieve every bit of positive news that comes out, just the obviously distorted and spun bits. I think most of us would agree that some systems are going to be fixed in time. Whether enough will be fixed in time to prevent systemic disaster is the question. News like this makes me cautiously optimistic, but I'm still getting ready just in case.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), January 25, 1999.

That came from the Texas office, Vic...

-- s (n@eb.r), January 25, 1999.

If there's anything good to have come out of the UP/SP debacle, maybe it's that UP learned how to apply some real thought to their processes and that they have some freshly available to put to work on Y2K. Plus if the UP/SP problems were partially computer-driven, maybe they had an early excuse to get into the code and clean up parts of the mess.

I kinda hope that any business (rail, power and banking are good examples) that has gone through a major merger in the last six years has had some concientous code-heads who've found and fixed potential Y2K problems as they've been inside the software doing merger changes. I'd feel I had some short-sighted middle and field level players if this wasn't the case.

WW

-- Wildweasel (vtmldm@epix.net), January 25, 1999.

I wonder if all their switching equipment is compliant (embedded chips), and their electronic sensors for rock slides, etc? My son is a railroad engineer and they have told him that they were compliant. But he wouldn't have any way of knowing if they were or not. Also, they all rely on radio and cellular phone communications.

-- bardou (bardou@baloney.com), January 26, 1999.

Good news - reasonably timed (Started in 1994, spent more money big time in 1996 through 1998, announced testing and completion in very early 1999.)

Could they have tested everything - honestly, probably missed a few things. But they started, checked, repaired stuff, and tested some more.

Remember people - this thing can get solved, and the process itself is relatively simple. Give credit where credit is due.

Then look at their competitors who have done every one of these steps - those are the guys in trouble, and the people whose customers are in trouble. If a competitor hasn't done this, and spent equivilent amounts of time and money - the competitor is likely to fail.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 26, 1999.