RFID readers on the wayside?

I've noticed what appear to be large RFID readers in various locations along the wayside. I see them near the Brentwood yard both on the turn outs and on the main. What are these for? I've never seen anything on the train that would be reading. Is it reading something affixed to the train or something person waves in front of it? Purpose?

I would guess that they are reading tags on the cars. Most railroads have these to keep track of where their locomotives and cars are at any given time. Helps to locate them when it comes time for inspections and things like that. Not sure if that is the case here since I don't work for WMATA, just my theory.

Yes, an RFID in a small pod attached to the car. They tried barcodes when I was a kid. Trouble is that they get dirty and hard to read. Now, it doesn't matter how dirty they get, they're still readable.

As mentioned, there is an RFID tag attached to the side of each car, except the 7000 series where it's attached under the center door.

It's mainly used to track car mileage but it's also tied in to other systems. There's a reader at each car wash for example to keep tabs on when the car was cleaned last.

dcmike wrote:There's a reader at each car wash for example to keep tabs on when the car was cleaned last.

Gee that must be a lonely reader....

MCL1981 wrote:

dcmike wrote:There's a reader at each car wash for example to keep tabs on when the car was cleaned last.

Gee that must be a lonely reader....

Took me a second to get it, but ha! Zing.

RussNelson wrote:Yes, an RFID in a small pod attached to the car. They tried barcodes when I was a kid. Trouble is that they get dirty and hard to read. Now, it doesn't matter how dirty they get, they're still readable.

Dirt was the easiest of things to fix - most common cause of failure was having the barcodes burned off the cars - hot slab loading did in the codes on thousands of gons. Car heaters trying to thaw out frozen bulk commodities trashed the codes on thousands of hoppers.