{"id":38083,"date":"2015-11-05T12:10:46","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T17:10:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/smart-union.dev\/news\/rail-industry-had-safety-technology-decades-ago\/"},"modified":"2015-11-05T12:10:46","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T17:10:46","slug":"rail-industry-had-safety-technology-decades-ago","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smart-union.org\/rail-industry-had-safety-technology-decades-ago\/","title":{"rendered":"Rail industry had safety technology decades ago","gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"text"}]},"content":{"rendered":"
WASHINGTON \u2014 In 1981, while traveling on a corporate jet, Richard M. Bressler, the chairman of the Burlington Northern Railroad, hit on an idea: What if the technology used by airlines to track the location of planes and help prevent accidents was applied to the rail industry?<\/p>\n
Mr. Bressler, an engineer by training and a former airline executive, directed a small group of his employees to come up with a similar system for the railroads.<\/p>\n
The result was a safety system called the Advanced Railroad Electronics System, or ARES, which was soon placed on several trains on a section of track in Minnesota. The system, among other safety features, allowed dispatchers to stop trains automatically if the engineer exceeded speed limits.<\/p>\n