When it comes to track geometry cars, we should go back to where they started out from. These track geometry cars came out in the 1920s when rail traffic started becoming intense and manual labour was no longer sufficient to carry out the checking operations. Trains also started having greater operating speeds that needed a stronger, more meticulous way of maintaining tracks. This is when a track geometry car was invented, in 1925.  It had an accelerograph that could record vertical and horizontal movements and also roll. It had a button that allowed the car to record stations and milestones. Slowly a number of companies came out with track cars with more advanced technology at each step making the manufacturing of track cars a competitive process.

How it was before track geometry cars came into being. 

Earlier track inspection was carried out by certified inspectors that walked on the railroad and carefully inspected every inch of the track. This was dangerous as it had to done when the trains passed. This activity required heavy manual labour and since man isn’t as fast as railroad service truck, the inspectors could only inspect a limited amount of track in a day. They were given a variety of manual tools to measure the different parameters of the track.

When track geometry cars were invented they came as a big boon to the rail industry. It saved on a lot of time and a lot of labour that went into the manual inspection of the rail tracks. A track geometry car can actually travel right upto 217 miles an hour, which comes down to 335 kilometres an hour, making it extremely fast and time saving. It doesn’t do anything apart from inspecting the track the whole entire time. The newest track geometry cars can cover really massive parts of the system in one single day.

It so happens that a lot of times, maintenance gangs go on to follow the geometry car and fix the defects reorded by the car, along the way.

The way a track geometry car functions

Since track geometry cars are full fledged rail cars (the only exception being some lighter versions of the same), track geometry cars have a great way of providing an excellent picture of how the geometry of the tracks look after loading. Manual labourers did not have any tools to gauge this. Lastly, track geometry data is then stored, to monitor the trends that come about as the track is inspected. This data is essential because it allows the railways to pinpoint exact degradations or future trouble that may arise and therby get a better chance at planning maintenance programs.

Brand value

There are a number of brands that will provide you with rail road truck manufacturers. Some give you products that have really advanced sensors to help in rail inspection, some have great imaging technology that gives really high resolution, some have inspection system that run autonomously to improve the maintenance and some have a combination of all of them.