DEVELOPMENT AND IMPLEMENTATION OF RAILGRAPH; A FIELD DEPLOYABLE RAIL MAINTENANCE MANAGEMENT TOOL

Rail remains one of the most costly railroad assets, and as such is the subject of careful evaluation and inspection. The decision of whether or when to replace rail is an important one, in that it involves significant cost outlays. Premature replacement of rail has a high price tag; however, delayed replacement can have an even higher one. On BNSF, a team of Managers Rail Planning is charged with evaluating rail proposed for relay or replacement in the field. In order to provide these rail decision makers with accurate and timely information, RailGraph, a field deployable software package was developed. RailGraph provides the key data needed to make the replace/keep-in-place decisions including: rail wear data, rail fatigue data, rail tonnage history, and predicted rail replacement year. This paper presents the development, introduction, and use of RailGraph on BNSF.