ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,291,248, issued on May 6, was assigned to BNSF Railway Co. (Fort Worth, Texas).
"Automated tie marking" was invented by Michael James Brick (Fort Worth, Texas), Lisa Marie Kelly (Weatherford, Texas), Samuel Minton (Brandon, S.D.) and Richard William Keller (Spokane Valley, Wash.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A system and method for automating railroad maintenance for a tie gang using electronic tie marking (ETM) configured to optimize railroad asset maintenance. The system enables the automating of an adaptive maintenance process for the asset that is being maintainanced. The system can identify a railroad asset scheduled for maintenanc...