{"id":427595,"date":"2025-12-06T00:20:26","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:20:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427595\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T00:20:26","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T00:20:26","slug":"agency-will-allow-railroads-to-reduce-human-track-inspections-and-rely-more-on-technology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/427595\/","title":{"rendered":"Agency will allow railroads to reduce human track inspections and rely more on technology"},"content":{"rendered":"

The nation\u2019s freight railroads are going to be able to try relying more on technology and inspect their tracks in person less often after the federal government approved their waiver request on Friday.<\/p>\n

The Association of American Railroads trade group asked for the relief from inspection requirements that were written back in 1971 because railroads believe the automated track inspection technology they use today is so good at spotting problems early that human inspections aren\u2019t needed as frequently. They say that extended tests that BNSF and Norfolk Southern ran show that safety actually improved even when human inspections were reduced from twice a week to twice a month.<\/p>\n

The Federal Railroad Administration didn\u2019t go quite that far in its decision, but the agency said railroads will be able to cut inspections down to only once a week under the approved waiver.<\/p>\n

The railroads had also asked for permission to have up to three days to repair defects identified by the automated inspections. But the Federal Railroad Administration said any serious defects in the tracks must be repaired immediately and all defects should be addressed within 24 hours. <\/p>\n

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Union says technology can miss problems<\/p>\n

These automated inspection systems use an array of cameras and lasers installed either on a locomotive or on a railcar that can be pulled as part of a train to assess whether the tracks are moving out of alignment or shifting. But the union that represents track inspectors says the technology can\u2019t detect things like the rock underneath the track shifting, vegetation growing into the path of the trains, a crack in the rail or railroad ties rotting out. Plus, inspectors can spot a combination of small defects that might together derail a train where the machine might not register a problem, the union says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is everyday defects across the entire country that we find through visual inspections that cannot be detected by this machinery,\u201d Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union President Tony Cardwell said. \u201cAnd that technology is not there. It has been here for 30 years. It hasn\u2019t really advanced much at all. It\u2019s a glorified tape measure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division union that represents track inspectors acknowledges that this technology does help spot problems. But the union says that this automated inspection equipment should supplement \u2014 not replace \u2014 human inspections because reducing track inspections would increase the risk of derailments.<\/p>\n

The railroads counter that even if these systems can\u2019t see the ballast shifting under the tracks or the ties starting to rot, the system will notice the symptoms of those problems because the track geometry \u2014 basically the alignment of the tracks \u2014 will be affected when those things happen.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat it is looking at is the ultimate performance. If those components are doing their job, then the track geometry is being maintained. If they\u2019re not doing their job, the track geometry is not being maintained,\u201d said Mike Rush, the Association of American Railroads\u2019 senior vice president of safety and operations.<\/p>\n

Companies say technology is more effective<\/p>\n

BNSF railroad said when it was arguing with the Federal Railroad Administration about whether their test should be extended that the \u201ctechnology has proven to be far more sensitive and effective at detecting geometry defects on BNSF\u2019s network than the regime of manual visual inspections mandated by the historic regulations.\u201d <\/p>\n

Over two years of testing, manual inspections detected only 0.01 defects per 100 miles, compared with the section of the railroad where the test was being run where the combination of the technology and reduced inspections found 4.54 defects per 100 miles.<\/p>\n

The Federal Railroad Administration agreed that tracks don\u2019t need to be inspected visually as frequently when these automated track inspection systems are used regularly.<\/p>\n

Cardwell and the union\u2019s safety director, Roy Morrison, think that\u2019s a bad idea. They said that one of the benefits of frequent inspections is that the inspectors become intimately familiar with their territories, which helps them spot subtle changes. If they aren\u2019t out on the tracks as often, it may be harder to spot problems, they said.<\/p>\n

\u201cA track inspector who\u2019s out on his mainline track twice a week, he knows that track inside out, and a lot of times he\u2019ll spot a defect without even knowing what he\u2019s looking at yet,\u201d Morrison said. \u201cHe\u2019ll get out of the truck and say, hey, there\u2019s something wrong here. Take some measurements and go, OK, this is what\u2019s going on.\u201d <\/p>\n

But the railroads say that freeing up inspectors from some of these mandated track inspections will allow them to focus more on switches and other equipment that must be inspected manually. Plus, Norfolk Southern noted in its comments on the request that even if regular inspections aren\u2019t being done as often, special inspections will still be done regularly anytime there is a major storm or flooding in a certain area to make sure the tracks weren\u2019t affected.<\/p>\n

Norfolk Southern said that during its 18-month test of reducing inspections while using the technology, the railroad saw improvements in areas that the automated system can\u2019t find because inspectors were free to spend more time focused on those areas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The nation\u2019s freight railroads are going to be able to try relying more on technology and inspect their…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":427596,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[64,16721,6064,723,10104,57,4353,181121,198948,9540,21719,15226,3336,1574,1573,5217,2830,198947,358,198946,522,29736,5028,61,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-427595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-business","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-engineering","10":"tag-fl-state-wire","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-ga-state-wire","13":"tag-general-news","14":"tag-georgia","15":"tag-local-news-for-apple","16":"tag-mike-rush","17":"tag-missouri","18":"tag-mo-state-wire","19":"tag-ne-state-wire","20":"tag-nebraska","21":"tag-oh-state-wire","22":"tag-ohio","23":"tag-pa-state-wire","24":"tag-pennsylvania","25":"tag-roy-morrison","26":"tag-texas","27":"tag-tony-cardwell","28":"tag-transportation","29":"tag-transportation-technology","30":"tag-tx-state-wire","31":"tag-u-s-news","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-unitedstates","34":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115669765495412321","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=427595"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/427595\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/427596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=427595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=427595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=427595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}