Hazmut 101 Remote Monitoring Devices on Rail Cars

Initial Email Enquiry –

Earlier this year I was sent an email about remote monitoring devices that were being put on rail cars, by one chemical company.
I have now seen cars coming through my community with these devices on them. Is anyone familiar with these devices? I would like to get some factual information about them so that this can be distributed to the other members of the county haz-mat team. Also, can anyone tell me if they will be more common place in the future?

I know that they monitor the load, impact, temperature and also have a GPS unit in them.

Thank you all for your assistance and information.

1st Response –

GPS and remote monitoring devices are being seen on a number of rail cars (not to mention some inter-modal containers). A number of companies are installing these types of devices on a portion of their fleet. One such company is BP which is adding this type of device to their LPG tank cars as a test of the technology.

The devices which are being tested allow the tracking of the tank car (using GPS positioning) as well as monitor various conditions. Along with pressure and temperature readings, the device can also monitor for the opening of the protective housing, which could be useful to prevent or respond to the tampering of cars. The devices are powered by a small solar panel mounted to the top of the car with some visible wiring running to various locations on the car, depending on the specific application of the device.

As there are a number of different such devices and their capabilities and functions vary, I can't really be more specific at this point. I am going to speak to my colleagues at BP and see if they have anything formal they would be willing to share with the response community. I'll keep you posted.

2^nd Response –

I´m not aware of such decives in use on rail cars for BP. Most rail cars we operate in Europe are not owned by us. we rent them from different companies.

3^rd Response –

The only remote monitoring I am aware of is in the UK on static tanks for contents measurement for customer product order monitoring. I assume the unit could be modified to incorporate monitoring of other data.

End of email correspondence on Topic to date

Author’s identities are concealed for privacy and security reasons. Further information on the information contained in this topic can be directed to the JOIFF secretariat.