The Federal Railroad Administration sponsored a research team fromEngineering Services, Inc. to perform an analysis of the effectiveness of the thermalprotection system on a DOT-117 rail car as a fire protection measure. This research wascarried out between February 2022 and March 2023 at multiple ESi locations; theexperimental tests were performed at ESi’s Houston, Texas office. The objective of thiswork was to evaluate the performance of the thermal protection system in rail cars as arisk mitigation control to prevent a catastrophic thermal event. The research group alsoanalyzed the heat transfer from a fire to rail car contents to understand theeffectiveness of a potential fire response from a local fire department.