WASHINGTON — BNSF Railway will be able to continue testing unmanned geometry cars in the Powder River Basin after a federal appeals court shot down a petition from one of the nation’s largest maintenance-of-way employee unions.
On Oct. 11, federal appeals court judges in Washington D.C. ruled against a lawsuit filed by the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED) last year in an effort to overturn the Federal Railroad Administration’s approval of BNSF’s plan to test autonomous track inspection technology.
In 2018, the FRA gave BNSF permission to reduce the number of manual track inspections as required by law on seven different subdivisions in Wyoming and Nebraska. This allowed BNSF to conduct just two manual inspections per month on more than 1,300 miles of main and siding track between Lincoln, Neb., and Donkey Creek, Wyo., and back on the railroad’s Powder River Basin coal loop. The pilot program was broken down into four phases. During each phase the number of manual inspections were reduced while the number of unmanned inspections increased.
After the FRA published its notice of approval, the union filed a petition asking the agency to reconsider its decision. The union argued that two manual track inspections a month was not sufficient to keep the public safe. In early 2019, the FRA announced the ruling would stand. Afterwards, the union filed a petition for review in federal appeals court.
In the judgment published Oct. 11, the appeals court judges ruled the suspension of manual track inspections was “limited in scope” and “necessary” for BNSF to effectively test the usefulness of unmanned geometry cars.
Union officials say they disagree.
“The BMWED wants American railroads to be safe,” BMWED President Freddie N. Simpson says. “To have a set of human eyes inspect for defects. To know that the train your friend or family member is riding on won’t derail or the tankers that are pulling through your neighborhood will stay upright. We want a person, trained and personally familiar with their section of the railroad, responsible for keeping us safe.”
In recent years, Class I railroads have been experimenting with autonomous technology to inspect tracks and bridges. Earlier this year, Canadian National CEO JJ Ruest announced the railroad was deploying a fleet of unmanned track-inspection boxcars. BNSF has even experimented with having unmanned drones inspect tracks from above by taking thousands of detailed photos that can be analyzed by computer programs to spot broken rails or ballast fouling [See “Big Data,” November 2019 Trains]. “With artificial intelligence modeling technology, we can more precisely know in advance where our efforts are needed most and proactively plan,” BNSF spokesperson Amy Casas says.
