A wayside inspection station [railways]

Temperature data from commercial analog hot box detector equipment is digitalized, the mean and standard deviation are calculated for each side of a train and wheels with temperature values above a predefined upper limit are identified as hot boxes. The upper limit is measured in standard deviation units above the mean. The results of the statistical analysis of the heat data, alarms generated by other detection equipment, such as high and wide load detectors, other inspection data, such as train length, direction, and location of the inspection site, are reported to a control site in ASCII over a communication channel.