Hi-Rail Vehicle
A hi-rail vehicle is a rubber-tired truck or SUV equipped with retractable steel rail wheels that allow it to operate on both road and railroad track.
A hi-rail vehicle — also written hi-rail or hy-rail — is a road vehicle, typically a pickup truck, crew cab, or utility truck, fitted with a retractable set of steel flanged wheels that lower onto the rail to allow the vehicle to travel on railroad track. Hi-rail equipment is the primary platform for railroad track inspection in North America. The steel guide wheels keep the vehicle centered on the rail while the rubber tires provide the tractive force; the vehicle drives along the track under its own power at inspection speeds, typically between 5 and 25 mph depending on track class and the inspection being performed. To engage the rail wheels, the operator pulls onto a road-rail transition point — usually a grade crossing — lowers the guide wheels hydraulically, and drives onto the track. Hi-rail vehicles must be equipped with proper lighting, audible warning devices, and radio communications, and all on-track movements require track authority issued by the dispatcher or RWIC. Specialized hi-rail equipment includes brush cutters, rail grinders, weed sprayers, and measurement trailers — all built on the same road-rail chassis concept.
Hi-rail vehicles are the workhorse of railroad inspection and light maintenance. They provide access to the full track structure without requiring the coordination and cost of a dedicated track car or geometry train, and they allow a single track inspector or roadmaster to cover significant mileage during a tour. From a documentation standpoint, the hi-rail is also the ideal platform for onboard video recording: it moves at low speed directly over the track it's inspecting, providing a stable, GPS-indexed view of rail surface, ties, joints, and drainage conditions. High-rail vehicle camera systems mount forward-facing, rear-facing, and downward track-view cameras on the hi-rail platform and record continuously, creating a visual inspection record that supplements the written exception log and gives the roadmaster office visibility into conditions in the field without requiring a second set of eyes in the vehicle.
Depending on your territory, you might run hi-rail three or four days a week — covering the same track segments on a rotating inspection cycle. You learn the road: which joints are opening up, which low spots collect water after rain, which curves are showing gauge wear. You log your exceptions on paper or in a tablet and call in slow orders when something is out-of-face. The camera running behind you is logging everything you're seeing at GPS mile-post — and the stuff you didn't notice in the moment is sometimes visible on playback. That's the part that matters after a track failure: not just what you wrote down, but what the track actually looked like when you went over it.
Solutions
- High-Rail Vehicle Camera Systems
Purpose-built camera system for hi-rail trucks: forward, rear, and downward track coverage with GPS indexing.
- Maintenance-of-Way Camera Systems
GPS-tagged video documentation for MOW inspection runs on hi-rail and other equipment.
- AI Track Inspection & Incident Detection
AI anomaly detection applied to hi-rail camera footage to automatically flag track exceptions.
- Maintenance-of-Way (MOW)
Maintenance-of-Way refers to the department, workforce, and activities responsible for inspecting, repairing, and maintaining railroad track and infrastructure.
- Geometry Car
A geometry car is a purpose-built, instrumented rail vehicle that measures track geometry — gauge, cross-level, surface, alignment, and curvature — with precision sensors to identify defects against FRA standards.
- Roadmaster
A roadmaster is the field supervisor responsible for the maintenance, inspection, and regulatory compliance of track and infrastructure within an assigned territory.
- Roadway Worker In Charge (RWIC)
A Roadway Worker In Charge is the qualified individual responsible for establishing and maintaining on-track protection for a group of workers fouling the track or right-of-way.
- Track Inspector
A track inspector is an FRA-qualified railroad employee responsible for visually inspecting assigned track territory on a defined cycle to identify defects and ensure compliance with FRA Track Safety Standards.
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