Wayside Detection: Component Interactions and Composite Rules

Every day railcars are setout for repair based on wayside detector absolute alarm limits. These alarms successfully identify most of the cars capable of causing derailments. There would be thousands of additional cars set out if these absolute alarms were lowered to the levels required to remediate the remaining cars capable of causing derailments. The rail industry cannot tolerate this level of setouts, nor can it tolerate derailments. A more focused approach is required. BNSF has developed a Composite Rules Engine (CRE), which combines and evaluates the data currently gathered by each individual wayside detection system. It is capable of pin-pointing the worst of the worst among the remaining cars exhibiting elevated detector readings. CRE provides BNSF the means of bridging its stand alone detection systems to provide one centralized alarming system. The CRE is able to combine the separate rule flows of: Acoustic Bearing Detectors (ABD), Machine Vision Systems (MVS), Truck Hunting Detectors (THD), Truck Performance Detectors (TPD), Hot Bearing Detectors (HBD), a Warm Bearing Detection System (WBDS), Hot / Cold Wheel Detectors (HW) and Wheel Impact Load Detectors (WILD). In summary, CRE targets cars with multiple low level indications that, individually, are of little concern, but collectively have the potential to cause derailments.