Landstar is providing transportation solutions to a company that is using artificial intelligence (AI), data centers and camera equipment to help make rail transport safer for cargo – and, eventually, passengers. 

Landstar transported a data center designed and created at the Duos Technologies (Duostech) headquarters in Jacksonville, Florida. According to Duostech, the Edge Data Center will soon be used in combination with the company’s RIP® (railcar inspection portal) to detect potential safety issues on Amtrak high-speed passenger cars, possibly preventing a derailment.   

As Duostech CEO Chuck Ferry explains, the data center and inspection portal use machine vision and AI  
to analyze moving trains, improving and speeding up the railcar safety inspection process.  

“It’s basically a large car garage that sits on the side of railroad tracks, but it’s got machine vision cameras, lighting and lasers. It effectively takes images – top, side and bottom – of a moving train at 70 mph plus,” says Ferry. “Then, we apply AI, which automatically finds mechanical defects.” The information is sent instantly to the railroads so that they can decide if the train needs to be stopped for immediate repair to the car.  

Landstar is hauling the first of several such data centers to be used on a major project for Amtrak in the Northeast corridor — the first time the patented Duostech RIP and Edge Data Center will be used for passenger railcars versus freight cars. 

At 35 feet long, 13 feet wide and 11 feet high, weighing 57,000 lbs., the equipment was too large to transport without a specialized tractor-trailer. That day, it took several hours to lift the load by crane onto the double-drop extendable trailer, driven by Landstar truck operator Tim Cricks. “I have an 8-axle extendable, which is not that common, so I move a lot of specialized freight,” says Cricks, who was particularly impressed with the load. “The level of technology in that center is ridiculous!”  

When Cricks delivered the train safety equipment to an Amtrak site in New Jersey, where it is being installed, he had the opportunity to see some of the Duostech RIP® images and talk with the installation crew about the technology. “There was a time in South Carolina, when a railcar load of steel shifted,” Cricks says. Using the Duostech system, according to Cricks, “They were able to stop that train three miles ahead of a bridge before any damage could be done to it, the steel or the railcar.” 

That story illustrates Duostech’s message. “It’s important to get the results of the railcar safety inspection within about a minute of when that train passes the RIP because the information passes onto railroad decision-makers to either immediately stop that train or make sure it gets repaired at its next natural stop,” says Ferry. “That’s why we need to get the results within a minute or so, not 30 or 40 minutes later when it may be too late to prevent a derailment or maybe one has already occurred.” 

The data center is designed to shelter the computer components inside as they process terabytes of information taken as the train passes by. As the Duostech CEO explains, that much data, that fast, can slow down any system, making images too pixelated to be useful. AI speeds up the process and makes the images clear.  

Duostech has been a long-time customer of Jacksonville-area independent Landstar Agent Leslie Deakins. As she watched the loading of a data center at her customer’s facility, she noted, “Duostech could work with any transportation company it chooses, but I think they’ve stuck with us since 2018 because of our shared focus on safety, innovation and, of course, service.”  

She added that “Every load shipment is customized, from the big, cutting-edge stuff like this, to the maintenance parts we regularly ship for the company.” Through the Landstar network, she says, she has access to every kind of trailer and transport solution the company needs, now or in the future, as Duostech expands. 

Duostech reports that it scanned over 8 million railcars in 2023 through its 13 RIPs. To put that in context, the company says there are about 1.6 million railcars overall in North America, which means the cars are being safety checked multiple times and are bound to lead to safer transport for freight and passengers.  

Landstar President and CEO Frank Lonegro is a member of the Duostech board of directors.