Patent ID: 7708232

Claim:
A railroad car lateral instability/tracking detection system for detecting wheel and/or truck tracking errors, the system comprising: a plurality of proximity sensors mounted adjacent to a left rail of a railroad track; a plurality of proximity sensors mounted adjacent to a right rail of the railroad track; wherein most left proximity sensors oppose a respective right proximity sensor to enable a concurrent sensing of a left and a right wheel of a passing wheel set; an applied voltage to the proximity sensors; a data collection/control computer (DCCC); wherein a passing wheel set without lateral instability changes an electrical field of each of the left and the right proximity sensors, thereby creating a first output signal to the DCCC which is displayed by the DCCC as a normal wheel set; and wherein a passing wheel set with lateral instability changes the electric field of only one of the left and the right proximity sensors, thereby creating a second output signal to the DCCC, which is displayed by the DCCC as an abnormal wheel set having a tracking error.