Do you know where your locomotive is? And what condition it's in? And if your rolling stock is healthy? It's taken quite some time for advanced fault detection systems to catch on, but more railroads are testing the waters

Railway Age, Oct, 2003 by Marybeth Luczak

The future

As detector usage grows, planned maintenance and fleet management will get even easier with TTCI's InterRRIS [TM] system. This car performance database is designed to collect information from wayside detectors on North American railroads, providing industry-wide access to historical records of wheel, axle, truck, and train performance on a secure Website. Currently, the system is collecting data from more than 50 WILD and 14 TPD sites on UP, BNSF, Canadian National, and Canadian Pacific trackage. (CSXT and Norfolk Southern will soon add their detectors to the mix.) Onboard detector data is not yet filtered into InteRRIS [TM], but it may be in the future, according to TTCI's Irani. Because the data is car-centric--based on AEI tag information--participating railroads can track their cars across property lines, whether or not they own the wayside equipment. TTCI also allows private-car owners and locomotive manufacturers to track their rolling stock through a fee-based subscription.

"With a systemwide network that transfers data to InteRRIS [TM], all railroads and private-car owners will be able to improve their maintenance programs and determine what components work best on different parts of the railroad," says BNSF's Hill. "There's even potential for car redesign based on the best performing cars in operation."

Many railroaders agree that it will take time for every organization to develop confidence in detector equipment, but it's a worthwhile, cost-saving process.

"Detector systems are very reliable and have checks-and-balances built in, which is key," says UP's Beck. "The transportation group, the track engineering group, and the mechanical group at UP have come together to make use of the detector data. It benefits us all."