An official website of the United States government
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you’ve safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) contracted ENSCO, Inc., to apply alternative forecasting approaches to foot-by-foot track geometry data. The research team used track geometry data collected weekly by FRA’s DOTX-225 and DOTX-226 autonomous inspection vehicles. This investigation also...
From September 2019 to May 2022, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) funded KEA Technologies Inc. to conduct a pilot study using a rail simulator to determine whether engineers can become habituated to auditory alerts while operating a locomotive. Habituation, in this case, is a behavior...
The goal of this project is to assess crew safety of existing locomotive crashworthiness requirements using existing modern freight locomotive crash data analyses and simulation techniques. This project will evaluate the impact of the crashworthiness standards defined in Subpart D of 49 CFR Part...
The Federal Railroad Administration contracted Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to conduct a process evaluation of Operation Lifesaver, Inc.’s educational activities, with a focus on activities funded through an FRA grant agreement. The team conducted the evaluation from October 2022...
FRA supported Michigan Technological University (Michigan Tech), in collaboration with Pennsylvania State University Altoona (Penn State Altoona) and the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), to establish a Tracks to the Future: Railroad Transportation and Engineering summer program...
The Federal Railroad Administration sponsored a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to conduct laboratory and field research of railroad bridge transitions between September 2011 and December 2015. In this report, researchers present an interpretation of Amtrak and...
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) contracted Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to conduct a broad analysis of the impacts of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems and technology on track maintenance. This research was conducted between September 2019 and September 2020. This...
FRA sponsored Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to perform evaluation tests on tri-couplers designed and produced by Sharma Associates, Inc. (SA). SA designed and produced the freight car Electrical Power Supply System (EPSS), while TTCI provided support for the installation and...
EWI completed research and testing of an automated weld repair process for austenitic manganese steel railroad frogs. This report covers the second of two projects sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration and EWI executed this research between March 2016 and June 2022. In this phase of...