Inspection cycles, crew certification, and AAR billing — one record.
Rail and transit operators — Class I railroads (BNSF, UP, CN, CSX, NS, KCS, CP), Amtrak, commuter rail (Metro-North, NJ Transit, LIRR, Caltrain), and major transit agencies (MTA, BART, WMATA, MBTA, CTA, LA Metro) — operate rolling stock and infrastructure under FRA 49 CFR Part 213 (track), 229 (locomotive), 238 (passenger equipment), 240 (locomotive engineer cert), 242 (conductor cert), plus Hours of Service (Part 228) and the drug & alcohol program (Part 219). Transit agencies add FTA Part 673 PTASP. Internal QMS sits under AAR M-1003. AAR Interchange Rules govern cross-railroad repair billing. Wēlr is the crew-certification matrix plus the inspection-cycle scheduler plus the wayside-to-maintenance record on the same substrate.
Four pains across the FRA / FTA compliance chain.
- 01
Engineer / conductor cert matrix at crew-call tracked by spreadsheet.
Part 240 / 242 cert status (36-month recerts), vision and hearing exam currency, Part 228 Hours of Service compliance, Part 219 D&A program posture (random testing, return-to-duty), and carrier-specific operational rules training — tracked on a spreadsheet. Crew-call assigns crews against trains and the certification matching happens by hand; FRA Form F filings reconciled after the fact.
- 02
Daily, periodic, and class-specific inspection cycles tracked separately.
Part 213 Class 1-5 track inspection cycles (geometric + visual), Part 229 Class I locomotive daily / Class II 92-day / Class III 368-day, Part 238 passenger equipment daily and periodic — each in its own form, often on paper or in a separate tablet app. Cross-cycle compliance status across the fleet is a multi-week reconciliation under FRA audit pressure.
- 03
AAR Interchange repair billing reconciled separately from the repair.
When a car crosses interchange to another railroad and gets repaired, AAR Interchange Rules generate billing. The repair lives in the maintenance system; the AAR Field Manual exception codes drive billing rate; the cross-railroad reconciliation lives in Field & Equipment Compliance. Billing disputes recur quarterly.
- 04
Wayside detector events and maintenance events live in different systems.
A wayside hot-bearing detector trips; a wheel-impact detector trips; a dragging-equipment detector trips; an acoustic-bearing detector trips. The alert hits the operations desk; the work order opens in the maintenance system; the link between alert and repair is rebuilt after the fact — and the pattern across the fleet doesn't operationalize.
Four primitives. One FRA-aware record.
Engineer / conductor cert matrix on the crew-call path
Part 240 / 242 cert status with 36-month recert tracking, vision and hearing exam currency, Part 228 Hours of Service status, Part 219 D&A program posture, carrier-specific operational rules training — first-class crew attributes. Crew-call fails closed when crew certification or hours-of-service posture doesn't cover the assignment.
Inspection-cycle scheduler against FRA Parts 213 / 229 / 238
Daily, periodic, and class-specific cycles computed against operating data — Part 213 Class 1-5, Part 229 Class I / II / III, Part 238 daily and periodic. Captured offline in the field; reconciled to the FRA-ready maintenance record on sync. Overdue cycles fail dispatch closed per 229.21 / 238.305.
AAR Interchange repair-billing record
Off-road repair work orders carry AAR Field Manual exception codes, rule-defined billing posture, and cross-railroad reconciliation evidence on the same record as the repair. Billing disputes become queries; AAR Field Manual updates flow into the work-order template.
Wayside + maintenance on one timeline
Wayside hot-bearing, wheel-impact, dragging-equipment, and acoustic-bearing detector events stream onto the same record as the work orders that respond to them. Pre-failure indicators inform the next dispatch automatically; cross-fleet pattern flagged.
Why not extend the rail-platform stack you already run?
Most rail and transit operators run paper forms or tablet apps for inspections, a CMMS for execution, a separate crew-management system for Part 240/242 posture, and an AAR Field & Equipment Compliance system for interchange billing. Four systems, four audit trails — and the FRA inspection is the project.
| Capability | Wēlr | Paper + CMMS + spreadsheet | Legacy rail platform Trapeze · GE Transportation rail · SAP RM |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crew cert matrix on the crew-call path (Parts 240/242/228/219) | Fails closed at crew-call | Spreadsheet matrix | Workflow add-on |
| Inspection-cycle scheduler (Parts 213/229/238) | Offline-capable · sync to FRA record | Paper / tablet · separate forms | Schedule module · separate |
| AAR Interchange repair-billing on the same record as the repair | Single record | Two-system reconciliation | Bolt-on billing module |
| Wayside detector + maintenance on one timeline | Auto-correlated | Operations desk → CMMS handoff | Not modeled |
| AAR M-1003 QMS evidence as a query | Structural | Document store | Bolt-on |
FRA inspection-cycle posture — per asset, per class, fails closed at dispatch.
When the FRA inspector asks for Yard 84's inspection posture, you don't switch systems. Every locomotive's Class I/II/III cycle status, every track segment's Part 213 geometric and visual posture, every passenger-equipment Part 238 cadence lives on one record — with the engineer's Part 240 certification and the inspector's identity bound to each completion. LOC-9938 went two days overdue on its 92-day inspection; the dispatch hold per 229.21 auto-applied; the FRA Form F filing is queued for sync.
- Part 213 Class 1-5 track cycles, Part 229 Class I / II / III locomotive cycles, Part 238 passenger equipment cycles all on one record
- Overdue inspection auto-locks dispatch per 229.21 / 238.305 — crew-call fails closed before the assignment is made
- Inspector identity (Eng # / Insp #) bound to each completion · Part 240 certification verified at the dispatch gate
- FRA Form F filings queued in-band · AAR Field Manual interchange context carried through to billing
If any of these are true, we should talk.
- ✓Your locomotive engineer / conductor cert matrix (Part 240 / 242 status, 36-month recerts, vision / hearing exams, Hours of Service, Part 219 D&A) is tracked on a spreadsheet, and crew-call assigns crews before certification posture is verified.
- ✓Daily, 92-day, 184-day, and 368-day inspections under Parts 213 / 229 / 238 are tracked in separate forms or tablet apps and reconciled for compliance reporting under FRA audit pressure.
- ✓AAR Interchange repair billing is reconciled in a separate workflow from the repair execution, and AAR Field Manual rule-defined billing disputes recur quarterly.
- ✓Wayside hot-bearing, wheel-impact, or acoustic-bearing detector events go to the operations desk and the work order opens elsewhere — the link is rebuilt after the fact.
- ✓An FRA inspection, FTA State Safety Oversight audit, or AAR audit found a gap traced to evidence that couldn't be reconciled inside the response window.
A small founding cohort is shaping Wēlr for rail & transit operators.
Founding partners get preferential pricing, a direct line to engineering, and meaningful influence over the Transit & rail roadmap. Limited to a small cohort per vertical.
- Preferential pricing
- Direct line to engineering
- Roadmap influence
- Limited cohort
Ready to stop stitching service evidence together?
If your team is juggling PDFs, support packages, work orders, customer updates, and QA evidence across five systems, Wēlr is worth a look.
Welr LLC · Delaware