Fuel is one of the largest costs associated with operating a rail-based transportation system such as a freight train. A single typical freight locomotive in revenue service with the major railroads may bum over 400,000 gallons of fuel in a year. Many attempts have been made to cut fuel costs, but there is still room for improvement. One approach that has been used to cut fuel costs is to reduce the amount of fuel consumption. It has been determined that a one percent reduction in fuel consumption would result in a $20 million reduction in cost each year. One significant factor which impacts fuel consumption of a train is the variability in operation by different crews. For example, fuel consumption may vary by up to 25% for different crews operating the same train over the same route under similar conditions and load. The variation in fuel consumption is most likely due to inefficient locomotive control. Accordingly, there is a need to improve the control of a locomotive in order to eliminate the variation in fuel consumption.