Patent ID: 8227713

Claim:
A system, comprising: a railcar including a car body and a truck arrangement, a car-body weight sensor mounted on said railcar, a transmitter coupled to said sensor for transmitting a signal representing of the output of said sensor, a communications link coupled to the transmitter for communicating the signal from said transmitter to a central office; a support pad between said car body and said truck arrangement; said car body resting on said support pad and being horizontally swivelable about an axis through a center of the support pad; at least one of said car body and said truck arrangement having a flexible load bearing member that is subject to and repeatably deforms under stress and strain due to the load borne by the member; said sensor being a stress/strain gauge mounted on one of said flexible members outside of said support pad that measures stress/strain based on the deformation of the flexible member upon which it is mounted; wherein said sensor is mounted on one of said members at one end of the railcar for measuring the entire weight of the car.