Technical Reports

Human Factors in Railroad Operations: Communication and Coordination Demands of Railroad Roadway Worker Activities and Implications for New Technology

Due to our recent website upgrade some of the links in legacy documents might point to the decommissioned site location. We recommend that users take advantage of the search engine above to locate the material they seek on the current website. Be assured that we are working...

Development and Application of Methodology for Reliability Assessment of Tank Car Structures: Phase I

Safe packaging and transport of hazardous materials is of vital importance to tank car builders, users, Federal regulatory agencies, and the general public. Reliability-centered maintenance (RCM) can be used to effectively maintain the reliability of tank car systems in guarding against lading loss...

Bridge Approaches and Track Stiffness

Over time, it is not uncommon for a dip in the track to develop off the end of a bridge—on the bridge approach. This dip, or bump at the end of the bridge, is often a rough-riding spot and one that requires resurfacing at more frequent intervals than does the rest of the track. A commonly held...

An Analysis of the Opportunities for Wireless Technologies in Passenger and Freight Rail Operations

This document provides the findings of a study commissioned by the Federal Railroad Administration under the terms of the Broad Agency Agreement. The study was awarded to and performed by Ronald Lindsey, and the value of the findings is directly related to the participation by the Class I freight...

Field Evaluation of a Wireless Handheld Computer for Rairoad Roadway Workers

This report is the third in a series describing the development and evaluation of a software application to facilitate communications for railroad roadway workers using a wireless handheld computer. The current prototype operated on a cell phone integrated with a personal digital assistant (PDA)....

Technology Implications of a Cognitive Task Analysis for Locomotive Engineers

North American Joint Positive Train Control Project

PTC offers the promise of significant potential benefits in railroad safety, capacity, and efficiency. However, PTC reveals new and much more complex design issues than those encountered with conventional train control systems. This is largely because a PTC system comprises a large, distributed,...

Subsurface Evaluation of Railway Track Using Ground Penetrating Radar

This report details the implementation of 2 GHz horn antennas for measuring working ballast thickness using ground penetrating radar and the initial implementation of a 500 MHz horn antenna used for subballast and subgrade characterization. The work was performed as part of the first task order and...

Interoperable Communications-based Signaling Project

Interoperable Communication-Based Signaling (ICBS) refers to an implementation of a train control system based on signaling principles whose system architecture and interface are documented as Recommended Practices (from the AREMA Manual of Recommended Practices for Communications and Signaling) by...

Development of an Adaptive Predictive Braking Enforcement Algorithm

Predictive enforcement braking is one of the key concepts behind positive train control (PTC) systems. If a train is on the verge of overrunning a target stopping location, such as an authority limit, the system enforces a brake application to stop the train safely short of the limit. The concept...

USA Banner

Technical Reports