BNSF Railway Company, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway Inc., operates one of North America's largest freight rail networks, covering 32,500 route miles across 28 U.S. states and three Canadian provinces. The company transports over 4.8 million carloads annually, handling diverse cargo including consumer goods, agricultural products, coal, and industrial materials. BNSF’s efficient logistics network is central to North American supply chains, playing a crucial role in moving approximately one-third of U.S. exports and intermodal freight.

Computer vision enables BNSF to have real-time inventory in their intermodal yards. This enables answering critical questions: “What’s in my intermodal facility, and where in my intermodal facility is it?” Clear inventory reduces operational complexity to shipping critical goods across tens of thousands of miles of track.

The safe operations of trains relies on ensuring assets are in working condition. With computer vision, train wheels are inspected at critical points across the rail network, enabling identification of potential hazards, preventing downstream issues and derailments.

“Roboflow has been instrumental in achieving BNSF’s AI goals. We deploy real-time AI systems to keep track of intermodal inventory, increasing efficiency in our intermodal operations and allowing us to conduct timely preventative maintenance. Technological advances are critical to BNSF continuing its leadership in the US intermodal industry and Roboflow enables us to immediately realize value from state-of-the-art computer vision technologies.” Asim Ghanchi, AVP of Technology, said “BNSF, with Roboflow’s platform and Field Engineering organization, are deploying visual AI in production at scale across multiple intermodal yards today which is helping us meet growing customer demand for AI solutions.”