OMAHA, Neb. (NEWSnet/AP) — To help spot safety defects on moving trains, Norfolk Southern said Thursday it has installed the first of more than a dozen of a new generation of automated inspection portals on its tracks in Ohio.

The new portals, equipped with high-speed cameras, will take hundreds of photographs of each passing locomotive and rail car. The pictures are analyzed by artificial intelligence software the railroad developed. Unlike previous versions, these portals will be able to capture all sides of a train.

The first of these new portals was installed recently on tracks in Leetonia, Ohio, less than 15 miles  from where a train derailed in in February in East Palestine.

Norfolk Southern and the other major railroads have invested in similar inspection technology for years as they look for ways to supplement or in some cases replace human inspection. Rail unions have argued the  technology should not replace well-trained carmen.

David Clarke, former director of University of Tennessee’s Center for Transportation Research, said this technology can pinpoint defects that develop while a train is moving more effectively than a worker stationed near the tracks is able to notice.

“It’s much harder for a person to inspect a moving car than a stationary one,” Clarke said. “The proposed system can ‘see’ the entirety of the passing vehicle and, through image processing, is probably able to find conditions not obvious to the human viewer along the track.”

Norfolk Southern said it expects to have at least a dozen of the systems installed across its 22-state eastern network by the end of 2024.

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