Patent ID: 8212685

Claim:
A monitoring system for monitoring performance criteria of a railcar, said railcar including a car body and a plurality of trucks each carrying one or more wheel sets mounted on said railcar, comprising: one or more elastomeric pads disposed between each wheel set and its corresponding truck; one or more sensors disposed on one or more of said pads, said sensors measuring parameters relevant to the operating performance of said railcar; a computational element disposed on one or more of said pads programmed to control the periodicity and sampling frequency of readings from said one or more sensors and for performing an analysis of data gathered via said readings; a communication element disposed on one or more of said pads for transmitting data selected as a result of said analysis; and wherein said one or more pads are in direct communication with one or more other of said pads and further wherein data transmitted by any one of said pads may be relayed by another of said pads to a receiver.