Trying to get a troubled industry back on track

Betting on driverless freight trains to be the future, L.A. startup is already testing them.

- BY CAROLINE PETROW-COHEN

Photographs by MICHAEL OWEN BAKER For The Times PARALLEL SYSTEMS is using three miles of track outside Fillmore, Calif., to develop an automated, battery-powered railway car as an alternative to the thousands of trucks that sit idling for hours at ports.

Tucked away off Highway 126, on a network of railway tracks sometimes used to shoot movies, a local startup is testing what it says is the future of transportation: driverless freight trains.

Parallel Systems is using three miles of track outside Fillmore, Calif., to develop an automated, battery-powered railway car as a green alternative to the thousands of trucks that sit idling for hours at ports every day.

Down a dirt road and among fruit trees and farm animals, one of the gray and black prototypes sat silently on the test rails on a recent morning.

"We're the Waymo of freight rail," said Matt Soule, Parallel's founder and chief executive. "We are developing this technology to increase market share for rail and to make freight transportation safer and cleaner." Parallel Systems is one of many companies hoping to use the latest battery technology and artificial intelligence to build fully autonomous vehicles that will change the way people and products are moved.

At the company's headquarters, which is located in downtown L.A.'s Arts District, employees dressed in jeans and T-shirts work on developing a new train model for mass production.

The headquarters includes low- and high-voltage labs and a small section of train track. In the airy warehouse space, cold brew flows on tap and a pingpong table sits unused.

Google's Waymo, Tesla and others are tackling the robotaxi market while smaller startups, many of them also based in California, are focusing on other types of transportation. Torrance-based Arc Boats is building electric boats for water sports, and Mountain View's Wisk Aero is developing electric and autonomous air taxis.