A rail operator responsible for hundreds of steel, timber, and concrete bridges across remote subdivisions had to demonstrate strict compliance with Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Bridge Safety Standards under 49 CFR Part 237 and AREMA guidelines.
Each bridge required scheduled visual and ultrasonic inspections signed by a designated Railroad Bridge Inspector or Railroad Bridge Engineer, often in river valleys and mountain corridors with no cellular coverage.
Current state before intelliSPEC
- Paper field notes per span: Bridge inspectors sketched bents, stringers, chords, and bearings on paper forms in the field, then re-typed condition ratings and defect photos at the division office weeks later.
- Pin-and-hanger NDE silos: Ultrasonic testing of fracture-critical pins, eyebars, and hanger straps was delivered by specialty contractors as standalone PDFs that were hard to trend from year to year.
- Designation tracking risk: Ensuring every signed bridge report carried a current Part 237 inspector designation and ISO 9712 / ASNT NDE credential required manual checks before FRA audits.
Configured path
The railroad configured intelliVISION, intelliEDGE, intelliINSPECT, intelliNDT, intelliCREW, and intelliCOMPLY.
- Subdivision-to-span asset hierarchy: Every bridge was modeled in
by subdivision, milepost, span, bent, and fracture-critical member. - Offline capture along the right-of-way: Bridge crews checked out entire subdivisions in
, recording AREMA / Part 237 condition ratings, redlined defect photos, scour observations, and UT pin readings offline. - Engineer review and slow-order routing: Critical structural defects routed immediately on sync to the Chief Bridge Engineer in
for load-capacity review and maintenance prioritization.
Measured outcome
- 100% Part 237 cycle compliance: Annual and special inspections are tracked per bridge with automated lookahead alerts and verified inspector designations from
. - Span-by-span defect history: Inspectors arriving at a milepost see prior crack measurements, rivet loss counts, and UT waveforms on the tablet before climbing the structure.
- Immediate FRA audit response: Complete bridge management records export by subdivision or milepost in one query.