SCHAUMBURG, Ill. – The power of data, or more accurately, of commonly used data, may not have been explicitly the topic of BNSF Railway CEO Katie Farmer’s presentation at the Midwest Association of Rail Shippers Winter Meeting. But it was a recurring theme in several topics she addressed during her keynote speech on Wednesday on the first day of the conference.
Data played a role in Farmer’s preview of BNSF’s Barstow International Gateway intermodal and logistics project; in discussing the railroad’s automated track inspection program; and in efforts to improve arrival time information for shippers.
“I’m really excited about what we’re doing in Barstow,” Farmer said. “And not just because of the capacity. … What I’m really excited about is the conversations we’re having with our customers, ocean carriers, trucking companies, the largest importers in the country. … What we are talking about is not only the capacity, but also the way in which we will exchange data with each other.
“To give you an example, if I’m a big importer and I have a box on a ship, wouldn’t it be cool if, while we have a box on the ship, all the information comes to us and we can make decisions the customer can make the decision while that box is on the ship, I want to go to IPI [inland point intermodal]? Do I want to stay local? Do I want to transfer it? We have that information, we [can] plan to work around this in our intermodal hub.
“That’s the kind of conversations we’re having, and that’s how we will continue to adapt and develop the logistics park concept,” she said.
In terms of rail inspection, BNSF has been working to renew a waiver from the Federal Railroad Administration for its automated inspection program – an effort that has been delayed by FRA’s desire to make obtaining these waivers more difficult. [See “FRA aims to tighten rules …,” Trains News Wire, Oct. 28, 2024.] But at the same time, Farmer said, the company has been working to develop an inspection system for mounting cameras and lasers on locomotives in the tax service.
“It allows us to look in real time, foot by foot by foot, to see if there are any structural integrity issues. … It allows us to take that information and send it to [company headquarters] Fort Worth, and quickly use machine vision and artificial intelligence to identify if there is a problem with that stretch of track faster than ever. That allows us to move our track inspectors from finders to repairers, and to be able to fix that track problem without taking large time periods that interrupt that service,” Farmer said.