April 21, 2022
Ballast, Ties, Rail, Class 1, Freight, News, Railroad News, Regulatory, Safety/Training, Technology, Track Structure
Written by William Vantuono, editor-in-chief, Railway Age
This piece by Railway Age Editor-in-Chief William Vantuono appeared in the journal’s information feed on Thursday, April 21. This court docket case addresses a vital situation, so we’re reproducing it right here. DCL
BNSF has filed a Petition for Review with the United States Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals, naming the Federal Railroad Administration, FRA Administrator Amit Bose and the USDOT, of the FRA’s March 21, 2022 order (Docket Number FRA-2020-0064 – Request to Expand Automated Track Inspection Program) denying BNSF’s request “to broaden an present waiver of sure necessities of 49 C.F.R. § 213.233 to allow BNSF to broaden its implementation of automated track inspection applied sciences.”
“FRA denied BNSF’s request though BNSF met FRA’s solely situation for enlargement set forth in the present waiver,” the railroad mentioned in its submitting. “BNSF seeks aid on the grounds that FRA’s motion is bigoted, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and in any other case opposite to regulation, all in violation of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706. BNSF requests that this Court maintain illegal, vacate, and put aside the Order; direct FRA to grant the waiver; and grant such extra aid as could also be essential and applicable.”
BNSF’s petition is predicated on a March 21 letter from FRA Chief Safety Officer and Associate Administrator for Railroad Safety Karl Alexy to BNSF Vice President Engineering John Cech responding to the railroad’s June 15, 2021 petition to broaden the present waiver of compliance in Docket Number FRA-2020-0064 by including two new Automated Track Inspection (ATI) territories, in addition to Jan. 14 and March 11, 2022, letters requesting that FRA “promptly approve” the enlargement request. “FRA finds that increasing the present aid as BNSF requests just isn’t justified right now,” Alexy mentioned.
Following is Alexy’s clarification:
“The present waiver supplies restricted, conditional aid from sure points of 49 CFR § 213.233(b) and (c) to permit BNSF, underneath particular circumstances, to partially substitute the visible track inspections required underneath that part with inspections utilizing autonomous geometry inspection programs. The present waiver applies to 2 territories: BNSF’s Powder River Territory and the Southern Transcon Territory. BNSF seeks to broaden the ATI waiver to incorporate the Northern Transcon route as a brand new ATI territory and so as to add the Orin Subdivision to the present Powder River Territory. The Northern Transcon route runs from Chicago, Illinois, to Seattle, Washington, and contains a complete of 4,322 track-miles. The Orin Subdivision runs from Donkey Creek Junction, Wyoming, to Bridger Junction, Wyoming, and is roughly 395 track-miles. BNSF stipulates that in each cases, these new additions to the waiver can be topic to all of the circumstances, necessities, and limitations set forth in FRA’s January 19, 2021, Decision Letter.
“BNSF’s June 15, 2021, petition and follow-up letters of January 14, 2022, and March 11, 2022, observe the profitable implementation of the ATI waiver on each the Powder River Territory and the Southern Transcon Territory because the justification for increasing the waiver. In its petition, BNSF states that [t]he ATI Program has been demonstrated to be efficient on territories with mountain grade, difficult winter climate circumstances, and various site visitors mixes. There are not any distinctive operational, geographic, or weather-related traits of both the Northern Transcon or the Orin Subdivision that render both territory unsuitable for the ATI Program. BNSF reiterates this assertion in its January 14, 2022 letter and moreover contends that ‘FRA’s failure to, approve the enlargement of BNSF’s ATI program unnecessarily inhibits a possibility to additional scale back danger for BNSF workers and the communities’ in which BNSF operates. BNSF asserts that the ‘new paradigm’ its waiver establishes improves security and effectivity in a number of methods (i.e., by lowering track occupancy time wanted for inspections and unplanned upkeep, stopping service interruptions and rail tools incidents attributable to undiscovered defects, and considerably lowering hazards employees face whereas conducting “pointless rail and/or strolling inspections ). Further, BNSF asserts that merely including ATI inspections on prime of at present required handbook visible inspections just isn’t ‘the optimum method, from both a security, effectivity, or rail capability standpoint.’
“Recognizing that the Railroad Safety Advisory Committee (RSAC) is at present tasked to develop a consensus advice for incorporating ATI expertise into the relevant regulatory framework, BNSF states that ready for the RSAC to finish its job just isn’t essential given ‘indeniable security advantages from BNSF’s mature, confirmed ATI program.’
“In its March 11, 2022, letter BNSF reaffirms the success of the waiver, noting the protection efficiency of reaching zero multi-class drops throughout everything of the waiver territories through the month of February 2022.’ BNSF additionally reasserts that ‘merely including extra automated inspections to present handbook visible inspection rules doesn’t produce the identical outcomes [as the waiver].’
“FRA revealed a discover of BNSF’s June 15, 2021 enlargement request in the Federal Register soliciting public feedback on BNSF’s waiver petition. FRA obtained one remark in response to the revealed discover from the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division/IBT (BMWED). In its remark, BMWED recommends that FRA deny BNSF’s request for aid, asserting that granting the aid would adversely have an effect on railroad security. BMWED famous that it “doesn’t really feel” that any of the take a look at packages or waivers issued associated to railroads’ Automatic Track Geometry Measurement Systems packages present a ‘stage of security equal to the minimal security necessities’ of FRA’s Track Safety Standards (emphasis omitted).
“After consideration of BNSF’s June 15, 2021, waiver enlargement request, the general public feedback filed in the docket, and BNSF’s follow-up letters of January 14, 2022, and March 11, 2022, FRA finds that given the continued RSAC job associated to ATI, increasing the present aid right now just isn’t justified. FRA notes that the continued RSAC job associated to ATI is designed to look at the feasibility of utilizing a mix of visible inspections and ATI applied sciences to maximise the effectiveness of railroads’ track inspection packages. In different phrases, the RSAC job is designed to assist establish the optimum method to track inspection, doubtlessly using a mix of track inspection methodologies. FRA notes that in finishing up this job, the RSAC might want to think about information not solely from the ATI Test Program underlying BNSF’s present waiver in this docket, however information from the related ATI Test Programs which might be nonetheless underneath approach on a number of railroads. FRA finds that short-circuiting this analysis course of on particular person railroads just isn’t in the general public curiosity and according to railroad security right now.
“Accordingly, FRA dismisses BNSF’s waiver enlargement request.”
Editor Vantuono’s commentary
With all due respect to Karl Alexy and others on the FRA—which has contributed wonderful articles to Railway Age on behalf of the company’s RD&T (Research, Development and Technology) initiatives—denying BNSF the chance to broaden ATI makes no sense to me in any respect. As FRA notes, there was solely one public remark filed, from the BMWED, giving the impression, not less than to me, that the denial could also be politically motivated. With all due respect to the women and men who work very exhausting in the maintenance-of-way self-discipline, inspecting, constructing and sustaining roadway—with computerized, high-production machines—undermining progress and security enhancements that expertise supplies is counterproductive and disingenuous.
FRA appears to have made an about-face with its expertise initiatives, which till solely not too long ago had been on the quick track. Case in level: the Aug. 24, 2020 function article, FRA RD&T: Using AI to Improve Safety, by Jay P. Baillargeon, FRA Office of RD&T – Track Research Division, who in my estimation is a superb younger thoughts. From the article:
“RD&T has been a key proponent of AI for almost 20 years and has seen its efforts translate into viable expertise with widespread implementation in the railroad trade. For instance, the FRA RD&T automated joint bar inspection instrument, developed primarily between 2002 and 2009, epitomizes the company’s deal with leveraging AI instruments and functions. In 2009, the expertise was efficiently commercialized and has since grow to be a normal and extensively accepted technique for routinely inspecting joint bars. This system, which might be deployed both on a hi-rail car or inspection automotive, takes illuminated photographs of the joint bar at speeds as much as 60 mph and runs them via a collection of advanced machine-learning algorithms. The imagery is then processed to find out whether or not even minute hairline cracks are current. The photographs, together with detailed geolocation info, are then offered to railroad upkeep personnel for remediation.
“RD&T will examine different aspects of AI over the following 5 years, together with two particular areas:
“AI-based danger evaluation—in which a collection of applied sciences can be developed to extend security and scale back human error by bettering the pace, accuracy and consistency of routine inspection processes. The major focus of this initiative would be the utility of predictive analytics.“Expansion of autonomous inspection applied sciences—in order that key inspections of kit or infrastructure happen seamlessly throughout routine operations, as an alternative of as a separate, devoted course of.”
“With the usage of AI and different applied sciences, there’s nice potential for railroads to additional scale back the prevalence of high-consequence accidents and derailments altogether. To understand such a future for rail transportation, RD&T is targeted on devoted analysis initiatives geared toward Improving, Implementing and Inspiring … FRA will proceed to discover the multitude of the way AI and different applied sciences can improve railway security. The company is dedicated to fostering improvements important to realizing a future the place accidents and derailments in the railroad trade are a distant reminiscence.”
What the (expletive deleted) occurred right here? Someone inform me, please.
Working with suppliers, BNSF has all the time been on the forefront of expertise. Predecessor Burlington Northern was the primary Class I to undertake AC-traction locomotives in the early Nineties. BNSF was approach forward of its friends with PTC implementation. There are quite a few different examples. ATI is without doubt one of the most up-to-date. It consists of applied sciences like Track Health Optical Recognition (THOR), optical track inspection that detects and stories defects on rail joints, equivalent to lacking bolts or cracks as small as one-sixteenth of an inch, and is totally operational on each of BNSF’s manned geometry vehicles.
Denying additional progress and saying issues like “short-circuiting this analysis course of on particular person railroads just isn’t in the general public curiosity and [not] according to railroad security right now” just isn’t according to the FRA I got here to deeply respect and admire, underneath the steerage of former Administrator Ron Batory.
ATI can detect what the human eye can not see. FRA, do us all a favor: Open your eyes. Ignore the uninformed rhetoric from members of Congress on the House T&I Committee and Railroad Subcommittee whose information and understanding of our trade is, to be well mannered, lower than optimum. Kill the politics, if that’s what’s occurring.
(If you wish to dive deeper into what BNSF and different railroads are doing with ATI, learn Railway Track & Structures Managing Editor David C. Lester’s article, Moving to Performance-Based Automated Track Inspection: The Benefits and Hurdles Ahead, in Interface Journal.)
I’d higher cease earlier than I get actually pissed off. – William C. Vantuono
For transient information updates and commentary, please observe me on Twitter @davidclesterRTS
Categories: Ballast, Ties, Rail, Class 1, Freight, News, Railroad News, Regulatory, Safety/Training, Technology, Track Structure
Tags: ATI, Automated track inspection, BNSF, Breaking News, Federal Railroad Administration, FRA, track construction
https://www.rtands.com/freight/class-1/bnsf-fra-automated-track-inspection-dispute-in-federal-court/
