For the better part of a century, mechanical wayside detection has been utilized by railroads to find failed railcar bearings before they cause an accident. However, the East Palestine, OH derailment put a spotlight on the gaps in this system, and the tragic consequences that even rare failures can have. New approaches are needed to eliminate these failures.

Rather than relying on late-stage failure indication like rising temperature, predictive systems like the Hum Boomerang that use vibration monitoring can identify bearing failure months to years in advance.

Project Guardian was formed to integrate this technology into the existing wayside communication network and train the workers who run those systems. This project will develop a wayside receiver that allows railcar sensors to transmit railcar condition data directly into the wayside communication network, allowing the locomotive engineer, the dispatch desk, or the PTC system to take control even when wayside detectors aren’t present or effective.

The Guardian coalition of the Brotherhood of Railroad Signalmen, the University of Texas-Rio Grand Valley, and Hum will design, build, and test this new equipment at the Technology Transportation Center (TTC) in Pueblo, CO.