US Patent Issued to BNSF Railway on March 18 for "System and method for virtual approach signal restriction upgrade" (Missouri, Kansas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 19 -- United States Patent no. 12,252,163, issued on March 18, was assigned to BNSF Railway Co. (Fort Worth, Texas).

"System and method for virtual approach signal restriction upgrade" was invented by Scott D. Sapp (Smithville, Mo.), Mitchell W. Beard (Shawnee, Kan.) and Michael E. Ramolt (Shawnee, Kan.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for providing a virtual approach signal restriction upgrade between physical signaling components is presented. In one embodiment, in a CTC type of operation, the use of a virtual signal with signal type functionality to split a block into two or more sections can allow a train currently governed by an approach indicatio...