The future of trains starts in Pittsburgh
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The Maverick autonomous locomotive could help train companies compete with freight trucks. Photo: Ryan Deto/Axios
As Americans' appetite for delivered goods continues to grow, a Pittsburgh company is looking to ensure trains play an essential role with help from AI.
Why it matters: Attention on freight trains has skyrocketed in the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio, derailment in 2023. Freight traffic — already the vast majority of train trips in the nation — continues to climb thanks to strong consumer demand.
Driving the news: Pittsburgh-based Wabtec unveiled a suite of technological advances for trains last week.
- The locomotive manufacturer showcased robotics, AI and autonomous driving technologies to aid in rail inspections, assist onboard crews and expand small-load freight delivery.
🤖 Behind the scenes: The new tools are designed to make rail yards run more efficiently and to assist conductors and workers operating trains and fixing infrastructure, said Milan Karunaratne, Wabtec's vice president of AI and digital advanced technologies.
- Rail Ghost is a robotic sled, created in partnership with Carnegie Robotics, that can slide underneath rail cars without taking them off the tracks. Karunaratne said it could allow workers to inspect the underside of rail cars more quickly than manual inspections.
- Teleoperation allows trains to be operated remotely, with initial applications to prepare a train in the rail yard before the crew arrives.
- Maverick is an autonomous locomotive that could carry limited haul with the goal of being able to stop "line of sight," said Karunaratne.
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State of play: Some of the technology is already in use, including a fuel-injection system that allows Wabtec's fleet in Florida to run on liquid natural gas instead of diesel.
- Officials hope the fuel injection system can allow trains to partially use hydrogen, methanol and ethanol to run locomotives.
🚛 Reality check: Freight trucking has grown faster than freight rail over the years. Trucking also has speed and flexibility advantages and benefits from an ever-expanding American highway system.
The intrigue: Though Wabtec's efforts are primarily focused on freight for its North American market, any efficiency gains on freight lines could clear up space for passenger rail, which primarily runs on freight-owned tracks in the U.S.
The bottom line: Rail is still three to four times more cost-effective at moving goods than freight trucks, said Philip Moslener, the company's corporate vice president of advanced technologies.
- He added that Wabtec believes railway capacity is still underutilized and that the company's technologies can be integral to increasing those efficiency gains to compete with trucks.
Editor's note: This story has been corrected to say Rail Ghost was created with Carnegie Robotics (not the Carnegie Mellon robotics team).