Patent ID: 8155809

Claim:
A system for monitoring the neutral temperature of a railway rail, the system comprising: (a) a field sensor system installed on a rail at a railway site, where the field sensor system is configured to collect data for use in calculating the neutral temperature of the rail at the railway site, where the field sensor system collects a first set of data for use in calculating the neutral temperature of the rail at the railway site, and where the field sensor system later collects a second set of data for use in calculating the neutral temperature of the rail at the railway site; (b) a wireless network that is capable of transferring data from the field sensor system to a remote location for evaluation of the data collected by the field sensor system; and (c) an apparatus that is not located at the railway site, and that evaluates the neutral temperature of the rail at the railway site based on the first set of data collected at the first railway site and the second set of data collected at the railway site.