FRA Track Defect Classification & Slack Tag-Out Approvals

Automate FRA track defect classification and trigger Slack tag-out approvals—daily

FRA Track Defect Classification & Slack Tag-Out Approvals is an n8n workflow that runs every morning to classify railway track inspection notes using OpenAI, calculate risk-based speed restrictions, and request supervisor approval in Slack for Class 5 Immediate Halt tag-outs—then archive results to Google Drive.

What this workflow does

• Schedules daily at 05:00 and processes inspections for the current date.
• Fetches inspection segments due for review from the track-inspection system API and handles each segment as a separate item.
• Uses OpenAI to categorize each segment’s inspector defect notes into one of four FRA severity categories:
  • No Defect
  • Class 1–2 Minor
  • Class 3–4 Serious
  • Class 5 Immediate Halt
• Computes outcomes for each segment, including normal maximum speed, any required speed restriction, a remedial timeframe, and a recommended action based on track class and defect category.
• If a segment is Class 5 Immediate Halt, it sends a Slack approval request allowing a supervisor to approve, approve with edits, or reject the tag-out. For all other categories, the record is marked as not requiring approval.
• Archives and communicates results: uploads a JSON record per segment to Google Drive and posts the final category, action, and speed restriction to a Slack channel.

Use cases

• Rail operators who need consistent daily FRA severity categorization from inspector notes.
• Teams that require rapid Slack-based tag-out approvals specifically for Immediate Halt defects.
• Automation engineers deploying an end-to-end workflow: classification → risk outputs → approval routing → archival reporting.

Technical details

• Uses n8n nodes including if, set, code, slack, switch, and sticky note.
• Integrations/credentials required: track-inspection system API (HTTP Header Auth), OpenAI, Slack, and Google Drive.
• Replace the track-inspection API URL in the HTTP request node and configure credentials for all connected services.