An autonomous railway track assessment apparatus includes: a railway track assessment platform including a boxcar including an enclosed space formed therein; one or more power sources located on the boxcar; a controller; a first sensor assembly in electronic communication with the controller oriented to capture data from the railway track; an air handling system located on the rail car, the air handling system including an air blower and a heater/chiller; a set of air ducts in fluid communication with the air handling system and the first sensor assembly for supplying heated or cooled blown air from the air from the handling system to the first sensor assembly. Data from the railway track is autonomously collected by the first sensor assembly controlled by the controller and such data is stored on the data storage device.

A system for railroad directive management is presented. The system can receive a myriad of data related to a directive, track segments, and/or vehicle events on the track and/or track segments. Vehicle- and/or event-specific data can be compared with one or more thresholds, including force thresholds, temporal thresholds, environmental thresholds, and/or event thresholds to determine whether and what kind of directive modification should be instantiated. Specialized algorithms can be implemented to trace vehicle paths along the track to determine whether directive-related segments are traversed, and specialized clustering algorithms can be utilized to cluster data unique to a particular segment on a per-segment basis. The system can be integrated with existing track infrastructure and can further generate alerts to notify coupled systems and/or personnel of directives and/or modification thereof.

An ultrasonic probe for non-destructive testing of a rail, said probe comprising a housing; an insert comprising an ultrasonic transducer and a polycarbonate shoe having a face for contacting a rail; and a compressed spring for exerting a downward force on said insert; the system further comprising a plate with a restraining flange around an aperture to prevent the polycarbonate shoe from extending more than a preset fixed amount through the aperture.

A system and method for inspecting a railway track using sensors oriented at an oblique angle relative to a rail vehicle on which the system is traveling. The use of an air blower, ducts, and one or more air distribution lids over the sensors helps remove debris from blocking the sensors and structured light generators.

The present invention provides a highspeed advanced system to identify and classify the area of anomalies in a railroad rail. This is achieved by using a novel linear array solution that employs parallel transmission of an ultrasonic beam and the use of a virtual synthetic aperture to receive reflected echoes. This integrated system has the capability to locate and classify near surface horizontal defects at speeds more than 40 km/h and at the same time maintaining a constant pulse density of at least 4 mm or less per incremental longitudinal movement.

Systems for examining a route inject one or more electrical examination signals into a conductive route from onboard a vehicle system traveling along the route, detect one or more electrical characteristics of the route based on the one or more electrical examination signals, and detect a break in conductivity of the route responsive to the one or more electrical characteristics decreasing by more than a designated drop threshold for a time period within a designated drop time period. Feature vectors may be determined for the electrical characteristics and compared to one or more patterns in order to distinguish between breaks in the conductivity of the route and other causes for changes in the electrical characteristics.

A system and method is disclosed for predicting and comparing wear scenarios in a rail system. The method can include generating and running a contact model of the interaction between a rail and a train car to produce a simulated loading on the rail for a predetermined time period; generating and running a wear model based on the material properties and/or friction modifier properties of the rail using the simulated loading to produce a simulated wear profile of the rail for the predetermined time period; obtaining a grinding profile to be performed on the rail during the predetermined time period; and generating an updated rail profile by modifying the rail profile by the simulated wear profile and the grinding profile. The method can predict and compare crack growth over time, and provide a financial model and comparison of costs and benefits for different maintenance protocols for the rail system.

A system and method is disclosed for predicting and comparing wear scenarios in a rail system. The method can include generating and running a contact model of the interaction between a rail and a train car to produce a simulated loading on the rail for a predetermined time period; generating and running a wear model based on the material properties and/or friction modifier properties of the rail using the simulated loading to produce a simulated wear profile of the rail for the predetermined time period; obtaining a grinding profile to be performed on the rail during the predetermined time period; and generating an updated rail profile by modifying the rail profile by the simulated wear profile and the grinding profile. The method can predict and compare crack growth over time, and provide a financial model and comparison of costs and benefits for different maintenance protocols for the rail system.

This invention utilizes sensing technologies in combination with or in isolation of an automated inspection vehicle to conduct inspections of internal rail flaws in steel railroad track. A vehicle equipped with X-radiation sensing is used as a secondary method to assess the deviations in magnetic fields that are sensed by a primary sensor consisting of a single or multiple magnetometers. The magnetometers sense changes in magnetic field that are correlated to the flaws inside the steel rail. The technologies improve the probability to detect railroad flaws and offer the ability to accurately track and monitor flaws.

An object is to improve the accuracy of prediction of deterioration of railroad ground equipment. Provided is a maintenance assistance system for railroad ground equipment, comprising: an environmental-information storage part storing environmental information containing information on weather observed at a plurality of geographical points and on geographical conditions at the geographical points; and an environmental-load estimation part holding a relational formula indicating the relationship between aged deterioration of railroad ground equipment and the environmental information, and configured to, upon specification of railroad ground equipment for which to execute deterioration prediction, acquire the environmental information which is recorded at a point near the installed position of the railroad ground equipment, during the target period of the deterioration prediction, and predict the degree of aged deterioration of the railroad ground equipment by using the acquired environmental information and the relational formula.