Railroad vehicle accident video recorder

A data recorder for use on a railroad vehicle comprising:

• (a) an emergency brake sensor for detecting the application of an emergency brake on the railroad vehicle;
• (b) a horn sensor for detecting the application of a horn of the railroad vehicle;
• (c) a video camera suitable for mounting on the railroad vehicle to view the scene that the railroad vehicle approaches and continuously generate a video signal;
• (d) a video recording device coupled to the video camera for storing the video signal output by the video camera;
• and
• (e) a control unit coupled to, at least, the emergency brake sensor, horn sensor, and video recording device, the control unit detecting, at least, the application of the emergency brake and blast of the horn within a predetermined time window and in response thereto generating a signal to cause the video recording device to record the video signal for a predetermined period of time, and at the expiration of the predetermined period of time, terminating recording by the video recording device.

A data recorder for use on a railroad vehicle comprising:

• (a) an emergency brake sensor for detecting the application of an emergency brake on the railroad vehicle;
• (b) a horn sensor for detecting the application of a horn of the railroad vehicle;
• (c) a video camera suitable for mounting on the railroad vehicle to view the scene that the railroad vehicle approaches and continuously generate a video signal;
• (d) a frame grabber connected to the video camera for continuously digitizing the video signal;
• and
• (e) a control unit coupled to, at least, the emergency brake sensor, horn sensor, and frame grabber, the control unit detecting, at least, the application of the emergency brake and blast of the horn within a predetermined time window and in response thereto continuing to capture video information from the frame grabber for a predetermined period of time after the detection.

A method for visually recording a potential accident of a railroad vehicle, comprising steps of:

• (a) monitoring the status of an emergency brake of the railroad vehicle;
• (b) monitoring the status of a horn of the railroad vehicle;
• (c) detecting, at least, the application of both the emergency brake and blast of the horn within a predetermined time window;
• and
• (d) capturing video information from a video device that view a scene that the railroad vehicle approaches, the video information captured for a predetermined period of time after detecting that, at least, the application of the emergency brake and horn blast occurred within the predetermined time window.