A system for analyzing a railroad track comprises a transport device, a camera coupled to the transport device, an electronic display device, a memory device, and one or more processors. The camera is disposed adjacent to a rail of the railroad track and generates image data reproducible as one or more images of at least a portion of a surface of the rail. The processors can produce an image of the rail surface, which includes a plurality of elongated portions. The image is analyzed to identify any defects that exist within each elongated portion of the rail surface. The processors determine a value of a metric for each elongated portion of the rail surface. The metric is associated with the identified defects. The electronic display device displays a graph indicative of the metric for each elongated portion, the image of the rail surface, or both.

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 orientation of the sensors allows for different data to be gathered regarding a particular rail including rail design specifications (gathered based on manufacturer markings detected and analyzed by the system), rail seat abrasion values based on direct measurement of rails from the oblique angle, and other analysis of rail features including joint bars, rail welds, bond wires, rail holes, and broken rails. 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.

A system and method for monitoring a track and/or rail employs one or more imagers mounted to a railcar and directed to image the track and/or rails wherein the images are geo-tagged with location data. Geo-tagged images are processed to determine at least track gauge and/or at least rail fastener integrity. The system and method may also determine other track and/or rail integrity issues including, e.g., rail fastener integrity, rail profile, rail alignment, center point dip, cross level, rail cant, wheel wear, wheel integrity, rail wear, rail defects, and/or rail temperature. The system and method may also determine when inspection and/or maintenance of the track is indicated, and provide selected records of where and/or when such inspection and/or maintenance is indicated.

A system and method for monitoring a track and/or rail employs one or more imagers mounted to a railcar and directed to image the track and/or rails wherein the images are geo-tagged with location data. Geo-tagged images are processed to determine at least track gauge and/or at least rail fastener integrity. The system and method may also determine other track and/or rail integrity issues including, e.g., rail fastener integrity, rail profile, rail alignment, center point dip, cross level, rail cant, wheel wear, wheel integrity, rail wear, rail defects, and/or rail temperature. The system and method may also determine when inspection and/or maintenance of the track is indicated, and provide selected records of where and/or when such inspection and/or maintenance is indicated.

A rail state monitoring apparatus (1) includes: first and second transmission antennas (101, 102) to transmit first and second electric signals to rails (5, 6), respectively; first reception antenna (201) to receive a surface wave (21) of the first electric signal propagated through rail (5) and guided wave (32) of the second electric signal propagated through loop coil (10); second reception antenna (202) to receive surface wave (22) of the second electric signal propagated through rail (6) and guided wave (31) of the first electric signal propagated through loop coil (10); and a processor. The processor obtains received powers of the respective electric signals received by first and second reception antennas (201, 202), determines a rail state from good, rail broken, rail crack, or rail surface anomaly based on the received powers, and outputs the rail state as rail state information.

A system and method for inspecting a railway track. The system preferably includes: a processor; at least one sensor oriented to capture data of the railway track; a data storage device in electronic communication with the processor; and computer executable instructions stored on a computer readable storage medium in communication with the processor operable to: determine an elevation of a surface of a rail head of a rail located on the railway track based on a distance to the rail head from the at least one sensor, determine an elevation of a surface of a crosstie of the railway track based on a distance to a top surface of the crosstie from the at least one sensor, estimate a total rail height and underlying rail support, and calculate a crosstie wear value based on the determined rail head surface elevation, crosstie surface elevation, and estimated total rail height and underlying rail support.

A system and method for inspecting a railway track a calculating plate cut and/or rail seat abrasion (RSA) based on rail head elevation and crosstie surface elevation measurements and an estimate of rail height.

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.

The present invention relates to a device for detecting defects in a rail, including at least one collection of sensors which are able to generate an electrical signal indicative of a distance (dn,i) separating the sensors and the rail, and at least one rail vehicle able to move along the rail; the collection of sensors being assembled to the rail vehicle; the rail vehicle being configured to rest on the rail in such a way that said sensors are positioned facing and some distance away from said rail. The device includes a friction pad comprising a lower surface able to slide along the rail, the friction pad further comprising at least one cavity formed in the lower surface, the at least one collection of sensors being housed in the cavity.

Method for detecting switch degradation and failures having steps of collecting and labelling, into predefined categories, switch machine data relative to a predetermined controlled switch placed in supervised environment and conditions; storing the labeled data of each movement switch in a database and pre-processing the labelled data. A learning LSTM weights and cell parameters by performing a training phase on a LSTM network using the pre-processed data, thus obtaining a final LSTM model inclusive of architecture and parameters of the LSTM network suitable for analyzing switch data relative to movements of switches actually located on a railway track; collecting data relative to the movements of a switch located on a railway track; and classifying the switch movements into said categories by applying the collected data to the final LSTM, thus detecting switch degradations and failures.