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On Wednesday, Burlington Northern Santa Fe plans to begin training five roadmasters and 10 track inspectors on a new Track Inspection Management System (TIMS).

A laptop-based data management tool, TIMS is designed to standardize and consolidate current electronic and paper reporting processes into a single electronic reporting mechanism.

BNSF's engineering and technology services departments, and the Federal Railroad Administration jointly developed the system, which can be used to enter reports on asset inventory, and track inspections and defects, manage inspection frequency and file maintenance work requests.

TIMS will help make reporting practices more consistent and simple, streamline FRA reporting, and enable supervisors to review track inspection and defect trends, BNSF officials said in a prepared statement.

The Class I plans to test TIMS through 2004, then begin implementing the system in the Texas Division in January. During the next six months, BNSF expects to train about 563 track inspectors and supervisors, and 139 roadmasters on TIMS.