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Technical Reports

North Carolina DOT Traffic Separation Studies: Volume I - Assessment

The Federal Railroad Administration requested the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center to assess ten sites in depth that used the Traffic Separation Study (TSS) process. The assessment involved a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the impact of the process used at each site and an...

On-line High-speed Rail Defect Detection

This report presents the results of phase 2 of the project “On-line high-speed rail defect detection” aimed at improving the reliability and the speed of current defect detection in rails. Ultrasonic guided waves, traveling in the rail running direction, were examined for this task. The advantages...

Fiberglass Wrapped Tie Performance Evaluation Report

Forty-two fiberglass fabric wrapped, solid-sawn wood ties during 300 million gross tons (MGT) of heavy axle load (HAL) traffic and eight fiberglass fabric wrapped ties with metal cover plates were recently evaluated during 125 MGT of HAL traffic at the Transportation Technology Center in Pueblo,...

Ground Penetrating Radar for Railroad Track Substructure Evaluation

This report presents the results of the first three phases of a multiphase project to adapt Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) to railroads for use in developing useful indices of substructure condition and performance. Included are brief discussions of some basic GPR principles, as well as data...