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Technical Reports

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Safety Aspects of New Trucks and Lightweight Cars, Car 2 : Interim Report

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has sponsored a program to continue the validation of new techniques for testing and analysis that could be applied to the evaluation of the safety and track worthiness aspects of new freight car and suspension designs. The total program involves laboratory...

Railroad Safety and Public Policy

This paper discusses the safety challenges faced by railroads in the United States. It discusses and evaluates public policy dealing with trespassing, grade crossing collisions, occupational injuries, and operational accidents. The primary conclusion is that the government oversight body, the...

Rear-End Train Marker Light Evaluation

All rear-end train marker lights until recently were incandescent bulbs of almost identical design. With the advent of cabooseless trains and battery-powered end- of-train devices, new technologies using low-power LED and xenon flash tube lights were developed. Because of uncertainties in off-axis...

Observations of the April 8, 1979 Railroad Accident at Crestview, Florida

In response to a request by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), personnel of the National Bureau of Standards (NBS) and of the FRA visited the site of this accident. The purpose of this visit was twofold. First, to make observations that could be useful in studies of the properties and...

Analyses of Track Shift Under High-Speed Vehicle-Track Interaction

This report describes analysis tools to predict shift under high-speed vehicle-track interaction. The analysis approach is based on two fundamental models developed (as part of this research); the first model computes the track lateral residual deflections under vehicle passage, whereas the second...

Simulation Model for Risk/Benefit Evaluation of Rail Inspection Programs

A Monte Carlo simulation of certain aspects of rail inspection is presented. The simulation is used to compare alternative practices in railroad rail inspection programs. The results how that equipment performance and/or inspection frequency control service defect rate and suggest that allowance of...