RAIL GHOST
Pioneering the
Autonomous
Rail Yard
THE REALITY
How Things Work Today
“The challenge wasn’t just inspection. It was creating a better way to bring visibility, consistency, and intelligence into the yard.”
Every day, railroads rely on inspections to keep trains moving safely and reliably.
Much of that work still depends on people walking long cuts of railcars, visually inspecting components, listening for air leaks, verifying brake conditions, and documenting findings under tight operational timelines. It is critical work, but it is also repetitive, physically demanding, and difficult to standardize across shifts, crews, and locations.
What makes the challenge even harder is the environment itself.
Rail yards are dynamic operating systems. Weather changes. Visibility changes. Trains move. Every inspection must be performed within strict operational and safety constraints. Any solution that requires the railroad to change how it works is unlikely to scale.
THE OPPORTUNITY
How They Could
Work Tomorrow
RailGhost began with a focused question:
How might automation help simplify individual inspection workflows?
As the team worked alongside customers and operators, that question evolved. What emerged was a much larger opportunity.
Rather than automating a single task, could a mobile platform bring intelligence directly to the places where work happens most frequently—and where visibility is often hardest to achieve?
This shift changed the conversation. The goal was no longer simply automation. The goal became creating a trusted operating layer that combines movement, sensing, evidence capture, and operator validation into a repeatable workflow.
90M
INSPECTIONS ANNUALLY
1.6M
RAIL CARS IN SERVICE
100+
RAILCARS SUCCESSFULLY NAVIGATED DURING TESTING
10K+
TRAINING IMAGES CAPTURED AND COUNTING
THE BREAKTHROUGH
The Innovation
“This isn’t a lab robot. It has to work in the reality of a rail yard—on existing track, around active operations, and in the places where the work actually happens.”
RailGhost is a rail-based robotic platform designed to execute inspection missions directly within active rail environments.
Rather than positioning technology outside the workflow, RailGhost becomes part of it. The platform combines mobility, perception, autonomy, inspection software, and operator workflows into a system specifically designed around the realities of rail operations.
Most importantly, it works within the railroad—not around it.
“This isn’t a lab robot. It has to work in the reality of a rail yard—on existing track, around active operations, and in the places where the work actually happens.”
By bringing sensing and intelligence directly to the train, RailGhost helps shift inspections from manual search-and-find activities toward evidence-driven, mission-based workflows.
THE RAILGHOST
Key Capabilities
RailGhost was designed as a platform, not a point solution.
Operators define the mission. RailGhost executes the work-flow.
Rather than requiring constant manual control, the platform is designed around repeatable inspection tasks that can be monitored and validated by the operator.
Human Machine Interface (HMI) makes inspection practical at scale.
The platform allows operators to:
- Create and launch inspection missions
- Monitor mission progress in real time
- Review images and inspection evidence
- Validate findings and provide feedback
- Manage individual or multiple robots through a single interface
Rather than requiring constant manual control, the experience is designed around supervision, validation, and workflow management—enabling operators to deploy robotic systems with confidence while maintaining full visibility into what the platform sees and reports.
Purpose-built to travel on existing rail infrastructure, RailGhost can access areas that are difficult,
time-consuming, or impractical to inspect manually.
The platform provides access to inspection viewpoints that are often difficult to achieve through traditional methods, creating new opportunities for evidence collection and validation.
Images, sensor data, and inspection results are captured and presented through an operator workflow designed for review, validation, and decision making.
RailGhost is designed to support operators—not replace them.
Inspection results remain transparent and reviewable, allowing users to validate findings, provide feedback, and build trust over time.
The same foundation that supports inspection workflows today can be extended across additional
operational and infrastructure applications in the future.
THE IMPACT
The Potential to
Make a Change
While development continues, RailGhost is already demonstrating the potential to create meaningful operational value.
Areas of interest include:
- Reduced manual walking and repetitive inspection activity
- Improved consistency and repeatability
- Better inspection evidence and digital visibility
- Greater focus on validation and exception management rather than manual search activities
The strongest signal of progress may be how customer conversations have evolved. The discussion is no longer centered around whether the robot can operate. It is increasingly focused on where it fits, how it integrates into workflows, and what value it can create within a yard operation.
