Virtual inspections a solution to ending late-nite service?

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In short: Why have folks look at the track itself when you can take high resolution video of it from a maintenance subway car, and send it back to the maintenance shops for inspectors to look at? NY MTA's doing it now...

The thing is, NY MTA's system is $500,000! Yikes!

I love the idea, but I think I can do it cheaper. I think I can do it for under $1000 in hardware, and all of it located in Rockville, MD.

A Raspberry Pi 3 is $35. It's 8mp camera ($30) can do 1080p at 30 fps and 720p at 60 fps. Micro Center's 64GB SDXC cards are $18 each. Round up, and get a cheap case (or print it), it can be done for $90 each.

Mount ten of those onto the rail inspection vehicle (where ends are marked A and B), five across (outer rail left of end, inner rail left of end, center, inner rail right of end, out rail right of end), with the two sets pointed inwards to capture all angles. Standard Ethernet cables can connect to a central computer to store the pre-compressed videos, or they can be stored on the Pi's and extracted out.

$90 time 10 is $900. For another $180, mount another two Pi to look at the third rail, and be comprehensive.

Okay, over $1000, but not by much, and it's still much much cheaper than $500K. For $2-3K you cover install labor, a cheap laptop, cables, power (USB 5.25V, 1.5A per Pi!) and probably paying some kid to build the capture software for you. But you get a high resolution virtual inspection of rail, ties, clamps, and third rail. Plus, if it breaks, it's easy to replace by going to Micro Center in Rockville!

WMATA already has piece of equipment with said capabilities and more.

Now if we can get the folks that are allegedly trained to operate and interpreter the recorded information to convince folks elsewhere in the food chain to take corrective action on what is found.

SBJ,You might be right,but it will need to be change at all levels of Metro's management chain of command.

It's possible that the crews need to be "retrained" by the MFR of the Metro's track inspection vehicle,after the MFR's techs
check over,update the on board software,and any on board hardware that needs it.
This is from that wreck back at a crossover that was called a "glitch" by the on board techs that turned out to be
a real defect.
When a Sperry car finds a "defect" it stops and an on board tech gets off the car and checks with "hand held" gear to confirm or
reject the on board reading, the on board crew of track inspection vehicle should do the same,to confirm/reject the on board reading.
Also have 1 or 2 senior track walker inspectors ride along.
It might be a good idea to have some "outside" eyes from NYCTA's or Amtrak's track Geo crews to ride along and HELP the Metro's
track Geo crew to make the RIGHT calls about track defects.

To address the topic drift that arose about Metro's TGV operations:

The TGV crew and Track Inspections report what they see and know what they're looking at. What's done about it is another story. That's why it was so preposterous that the primary defect that contributed to the Smithsonian derailment Backshophoss referred to was detected a month before the derailment (by the TGV), but nothing was done about it. I ranted about it more here: viewtopic.php?f=64&t=160236&start=53. In my opinion, the voltage spike issue at BART and the G train derailment at NYCT in 2015 revealed worse safety culture issues than the WMATA derailment.

After the Smithsonian incident, the culture of “inspectors only inspect” started to erode and the TGV began stopping to verify defects beyond safety thresholds. They really don't need anyone coming from outside to tell them what they already know. It's good for the sake of industry collaboration and development, but they don't need to be "reconstructed"

As for virtual Inspections, I lean more toward boots on the track, because it provides a real-time assessment of what's going on. Virtual inspection can be a great supplement, but not a replacement to walking inspections. As long as the crews are invested in and empowered to do their job, you will get quality information about your railroad. Now what the rest of your railroad does with that information is up to them.