Using MINA a guided walkthrough

Try it now

Open the map and follow along: pick a network, choose a quick view, launch, then rank the track in view.

Download the video (MP4)

Music: Maurice Ravel, Boléro, recording by Omega13a (MuseScore 4), Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY 4.0; excerpt, faded and level-adjusted.

Transcript

1. 0:01What if you could frame an area on a map, and in one step, build a custom ground hazard risk map for it?
2. 0:09And what if that one simple step gave you everything you need to start a ground hazard risk assessment?
3. 0:18That information is out there.
4. 0:20It's spread across a lot of different databases: soils, geology, flood maps, landslide records, river gauges, weather and warnings.
5. 0:32Each one is actively managed and maintained, and the weather and river data change by the minute.
6. 0:40Sure, you could gather all of it by hand.
7. 0:44You'd open a dozen websites, download files, line them up with the track, and try to work out which milepost is which.
8. 0:53That takes hours. And by the time you finish, the weather has moved on.
9. 1:01That's why we built MINA.
10. 1:06First, a little about how we think about ground hazards.
11. 1:10Most washouts, slides and subgrade failures need two things to happen.
12. 1:16You need ground that's vulnerable: soft soils, steep slopes, old landslides, or an embankment near a river.
13. 1:25And you need water to set it off: heavy rain, a rising river, or a storm moving through.
14. 1:32Vulnerable ground on a dry day is usually fine.
15. 1:36Heavy rain on solid rock is usually fine.
16. 1:40Put the two together, and that's where you need to be looking.
17. 1:44So MINA looks at both, for every stretch of track on your screen.
18. 1:52Everything in MINA is tied to a specific railroad or state DOT.
19. 1:58You don't just see a soil map. You see the soils under your track.
20. 2:04And when MINA finds a problem, it doesn't give you a latitude and longitude.
21. 2:11It tells you the subdivision and the milepost, the same way your crews talk about the railroad.
22. 2:18That means you can answer critical questions in minutes, instead of hours.
23. 2:24Where are we exposed right now?
24. 2:27Which stretches should we look at first?
25. 2:30Who needs to know?
26. 2:35Let's take a look around.
27. 2:37Across the top is a summary of what you're looking at: the network, the route miles, the river gauges in view, and any active weather warnings.
28. 2:48It's a quick read on the whole picture.
29. 2:51On the left is Map setup.
30. 2:54It walks you through ten steps, in order, so you don't have to know where everything is before you start.
31. 3:01The big map in the middle is where everything comes together.
32. 3:06Every layer you turn on is trimmed to your track, so you only see what matters to the railroad.
33. 3:13On the right is Inspect first.
34. 3:16This is where MINA ranks the track, and tells you where to look first. We'll come back to it in a minute.
35. 3:24Underneath it, you'll find the river gauges near the line, and a live feed of hazards as they come in.
36. 3:34Let's build a map.
37. 3:36Step one asks a simple question: are you working with a railroad, or a state DOT?
38. 3:43In step two, you pick which one.
39. 3:47As soon as you do, MINA loads that network's lines and mileposts.
40. 3:53Everything else gets built on top of that, so it always loads first.
41. 4:01Step three is the base map, the background for everything else.
42. 4:06The default is USGS topographic, because contour lines tell you a lot about slopes, drainage, and where water wants to go.
43. 4:16You can also switch to satellite imagery, if you want to see what's actually on the ground.
44. 4:22Step four is a shortcut. A quick view sets up a whole scenario in one click.
45. 4:29For example, choose Slope and washout risk, and MINA turns on the layers you'd want for that question.
46. 4:37You can always adjust them afterward, but it's a fast way to get started.
47. 4:45Steps five through nine let you choose your layers, and they're organized from the top down.
48. 4:52You start with the track itself: lines, mileposts, bridges and crossings.
49. 4:57Then you work down into the ground: soils, geology, boring logs, flood zones, and mapped landslides.
50. 5:06Next comes the water and the weather: rainfall, radar and weather warnings, and the river gauges and instruments that monitor conditions along the line.
51. 5:18Step ten is a summary of everything you've chosen.
52. 5:22If it looks right, click Launch map.
53. 5:28Now the map comes to life.
54. 5:31Remember, every layer has been filtered to the track. So if you see something, it's near your railroad.
55. 5:39Click any feature to find out more about it.
56. 5:43Click a river gauge, for example, and you'll see its hydrograph: how high the river is now, how it's been trending, and how close it is to flood stage.
57. 5:54That's often the first sign that trouble is on the way.
58. 5:58Soils, boring logs, flood maps and old landslides work the same way.
59. 6:04Click one, and MINA shows you what it is, and what it means for the ground under the track.
60. 6:13This is the heart of MINA.
61. 6:16Frame the area you care about on the map, then click Rank the track in view.
62. 6:21MINA breaks the track into short segments.
63. 6:25For each segment, it adds up two scores.
64. 6:29Ground points measure how vulnerable the ground is.
65. 6:33Water points measure how much water is acting on it right now.
66. 6:38Then it puts the two together. A segment with weak ground and a lot of water rises to the top.
67. 6:46Based on the combination, each segment gets a level: High, Elevated, Watch or Low.
68. 6:56The results come back as a table, with the highest risk at the top.
69. 7:01Each row gives you the level, the subdivision, the mileposts, and the reasons it scored the way it did.
70. 7:08You're not just told that a stretch is high risk. You're told why.
71. 7:14Click any row, and the map zooms straight to that stretch of track, so you can see it for yourself.
72. 7:21The numbers under each level are its ground points and water points.
73. 7:27They show you whether a stretch ranks high mainly because of the ground, mainly because of the water, or both.
74. 7:37Finding the risk is only half the job.
75. 7:40The other half is getting that information to the people who can do something about it.
76. 7:46MINA can create a one-page daily brief that you can print or email to your crews, your supervisors, or anyone else who needs to know.
77. 7:57You can also set an alert.
78. 7:59While MINA is open, it re-ranks the track every five minutes, so if conditions change, you'll know.
79. 8:08And you can replay a past storm, like Hurricane Helene, to see how it played out along the line.
80. 8:15It's a great way to learn from past events, and to see how MINA would have helped.
81. 8:23So that's MINA.
82. 8:26Frame your area. Pick your network. Set the scene, launch the map, and rank the track.
83. 8:34In a few minutes, you'll know where your track is most at risk, why, and exactly where to send people.
84. 8:43Because when the ground and the water line up, you don't want to be hoping for the best.
85. 8:49You want to know, and you want to act.