Second bridge at Sandpoint will relieve congestion, enhance safety

Vital link between Paific Northwest and Mid-West

Freight rail plays an important role in the regional economy, transporting goods and commodities we all use every day.  To meet the growing needs of our expanding population, BNSF is proposing to build a second bridge across Lake Pend Oreille adjacent to the existing bridge. The project will also include new bridges over Sand Creek and Bridge Street in Sandpoint.

The new infrastructure will provide the capacity needed for BNSF’s current traffic and future growth, benefiting all the commodities that we transport and the Amtrak trains that run on our main line.

When completed, trains will run in both directions across the bridges, reducing the need for trains to stop as they wait for clearance to cross.  The result will be reduced congestion, enhanced safety, shorter wait times at crossings, and improved service to our customers.

State and federal permits are required for the project.  The application for permits can be reviewed HERE.

Interested parties are encouraged to submit comments to: [email protected] or by going to http://keepwashingtoncompetitive.com/lets-support-rail-infrastructure-pacific-northwest/.  Two public hearings are being hosted by the Idaho Department of Lands on May 23, 2018:

• 8:00 AM Pacific – Ponderay Events Center, 401 Bonner Mall Way, Suite E, Ponderay ID
• 6:00 PM Pacific – Sandpoint Middle School Gymnasium, 310 S. Division, Sandpoint ID

BNSF is using the Internet of Things to improve safety

Reprinted with permission of Tribune Content Agency

Mike Garcia’s great-grandfather spent 40 years working as a railroad machinist. Today, he carries on that legacy as a director in BNSF Railway’s Modern Business Intelligence and Mechanical Systems department.

“I’m very proud to say that this is not the same railroad that my great-grandfather worked for,” he told an audience at Flathead Valley Community College Tuesday night.

During his talk, the second installment in the college’s 2018 Honors Symposium, he explained that BNSF is now one of the country’s largest telecom firms, an operator of unmanned drones and, thanks to these and other technologies, an avid backer of the “internet of things.”

“The internet of things is about physical things that have sensors on them,” he explained.

“Those sensors are measuring physical aspects of whatever that physical thing is, generating data, and then that data through some connection is getting somewhere” where computers and humans can use it to identify problems and possible improvements.

Garcia gave a few small-scale examples of this technology, like his exercise-tracking wristwatch or homes equipped with “smart thermostats.” But his presentation focused on how the internet of things supports BNSF’s vast operations. The company owns 32,500 miles of track and 8,000 locomotives, moving 1,400 trains a day around the West.

Plenty can go wrong in this sprawling network. Rails buckle in heat and pull apart in cold; avalanches block tracks; wheels deform under too much stress; the components holding railcars together can fall out.

BNSF is able to catch these mishaps before they get serious, Garcia explained, by braiding its tracks with sensors and detectors, and analyzing the data they collect.

He described one type of problem that comes when a wheel’s brakes fail to release as a train starts to move. “You’re dragging that wheel on the rail, you’re creating friction…and you’re melting that wheel, you’re creating a flat spot, so that’s not good.”

Force detectors placed on a track watch for those flat spots as a train passes overhead. Thermal detectors can spot a hot wheel. “We’re able to use these detectors to find that, get those wheels off the car, get a new set on there, and send it on its way,” he said.

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