Union Pacific Railroad is 'On Track' for the Year 2000

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Subj: Union Pacific Railroad is 'On Track' for the Year 2000 Date: 1/25/99 11:36:10 AM US Mountain Standard Time From: AOL News BCC: Lulu010101

Union Pacific Railroad is 'On Track' for the Year 2000

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.

SOURCE Union Pacific Railroad

CO: Union Pacific Railroad

ST: Nebraska

IN: TRN

SU:

01/25/99 13:35 EST http://www.prnewswire.com

-- lulu (lulu010101@aol.com), January 25, 1999

Answers

If U.P. is Y2K ready, then why spend 46 million dollars? This would be a waste of money.

-- Herbert Johnson (HERB87@JUNO.COM), January 27, 1999.

They will spend a total of $46 million for the whole 5 year project, NOT an additional $46 million this year. Finally! A major company, and an important one at that, says they've finished remediation with a full year to test. At least they've got a fighting chance to stay operational with minimum disruptions, which is whole lot more than the rest of the Fortune 500 can say at this point. Now if CSX and Conrail and BNSF were all in the same (alleged) shape, as were the electric and water utilities, we'd have a real basis for things not going Milne on us. But they're not, or at least they're keeping real quiet about it if they are.

-- YourFullName (email@ddr.ess), January 27, 1999.

Great they got finished, got finished early, and only needed 46 million to get this far. That's where my stock money is going.

Okay, so that leaves 499 of the Fortune 500 left with less than 340 days to go - for a ratio of subtantially over one _major_ company per day that has to _finish_ remediation and testing.

Ain't gonna happen folks. I don't know what will break in these big companies - and what the result of the "brake" will be - but I don't think it will be business as usualr this time next yea.

-- Robert A. Cook, PE (Kennesaw, GA) (cook.r@csaatl.com), January 29, 1999.


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