Monitoring and failover operation within locomotive distributed control system

A method for controlling a locomotive that includes a plurality of electronic modules distributed within the locomotive and communicatively coupled to a network in a standardized scalable architecture, each of the electronic modules including at least one configurable controller that is reconfigurable to implement distributed control of the locomotive, and at least one of the electronic modules including a programmable controller in communication with the configurable controller and the network, the method comprising:

• monitoring, by a first configurable controller, a first programmable controller;
• determining, by the first configurable controller, whether the first programmable controller enters into a failure condition;
• and
• when the first programmable enters into the failure condition, transmitting, by the first configurable controller, a signal indicating the failure condition of the first programmable controller.

A consist, comprising:

• a plurality of locomotives, each locomotive comprising:
• a network disposed within the locomotive;
• and
• a plurality of electronic modules distributed within the locomotive and communicatively coupled to the network in a standardized scalable architecture, each of the electronic modules comprising at least one configurable controller that is reconfigurable to implement distributed control of the locomotive, and at least one of the electronic modules comprising a programmable controller in communication with the configurable controller and the network,
• wherein a first configurable controller is configured to monitor at least a first programmable controller.