44 Business View Magazine - May 2016
cur. Managed by Railinc —a trusted third party in the
freight rail industry—the initiative allows railroads and
railcar owners to share rail equipment performance in-
formation gathered as trains travel across the entirety
of the 140,000-mile rail network, not just on their own
individual networks, thereby providing a more holistic
view of equipment performance and quicker identifica-
tion of problems.
The ultimate goal, of course, is improving railroad
safety and efficiency, and this nascent program is al-
ready helping to achieve that, preventing an estimated
1,000-plus service interruptions in 2015. And this is
just the beginning; as railroads gather and analyze
more and different kinds of data, they will be able to
predict and prevent equipment failure in ways never
before possible.
3. Safety Drones:
Unmanned aerial technology, also
known as drones, has the potential to help railroads
improve safety and performance. Several Class I
freight railroads are exploring the use of drones, in-
cluding Burlington Northern Sante Fe Railway (BNSF),
which is studying the long-range use of drones to mon-
itor hundreds of miles of rail at a time.
BNSF’s effort is part of an innovative public-private
partnership with the Federal Aviation Administration
designed to help various industries research the safe
use of drones in crowded cities or wide-open spaces.
If successful, drones could give railroads a bird’s-eye
view to better inspect their lines—particularly when
employee safety is at risk.
For example, when record flooding hit Texas and Okla-
homa in 2015, the waters washed away homes, busi-
nesses and infrastructure—including freight railroad
tracks. During this time, BNSF flew drones mounted
with high-definition video cameras over areas of the
flood zone to inspect parts of the rail network that were
difficult—or dangerous—to access from the ground.
With information about the flood’s effects in hand,
