Technical Reports

Evaluation of the Degradation of Concrete Ties Using Machine Vision Technology on High-Speed Rail Corridors

ENSCO, Inc. used machine vision technology to assess concrete tie degradation in Amtrak’s high-speed Northeast Corridor (NEC) over a 13-month period. The study examined three aspects of concrete tie degradation: 1) the prevalence of nonconformance types found in the assessed ties, 2) the...

DOTX 218 Survey Conducted on Pan Am Railways

This report summarizes the results from a May 12, 2014, survey conducted with the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) gage resistant measurement system vehicle (GRMS), DOTX 218, on the Pan Am Railways (PAR) track between Portland, ME, and Brunswick, ME. The survey was designed to capture the...

Characteristics of Trespassing Incidents in the United States (2012-2014)

Trespassing is the leading cause of rail-related fatalities in the United States. A large proportion of these trespasser fatalities are from intentional acts (i.e., suicides). The John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center) has been tasked by the Federal Railroad...

Fiber Optic Availability and Opportunity Analysis for North American Railroads

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sponsored an evaluation conducted by Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) regarding the opportunity and availability to use Fiber Optic Acoustic Detection (FOAD) in the North American railroad industry. The work was performed at the Transportation...

Blunt Impact Testing of a Diesel Multiple Unit Fuel Tank

The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Office of Research, Development and Technology has been conducting research into passenger locomotive fuel tank crashworthiness. FRA sponsored ongoing work performed by Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI) at the Transportation Technology Center...

Field Investigation and Modeling of Track Substructure Performance Under Trains Moving at Critical Speed

The purpose of this research performed by Pennsylvania State University between September 2012 and September 2015 was to formulate and validate a 3D dynamic track-subgrade interaction model, to conduct field measurements of subgrade conditions and track responses to train passes at a variety speeds...

Discrete Element Modeling of Railroad Ballast Behavior

An innovative integrated computational-experimental laboratory testing framework has been developed at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to evaluate clean and fouled ballast behavior. The railroad ballast layer consists of discrete aggregate particles and it is a critical substructure...

Research on Methods for Enhancing Positive Train Control Freight Braking Algorithms

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sponsored a research project, executed by Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to investigate methods for enhancing the data used by Positive Train Control (PTC) freight braking algorithms and to improve the evaluation process of PTC freight...

Locomotive Performance and Engine Durability Assessment of B5 to B20 Biodiesel Fuel Usage

This report summarizes work performed by Southwest Research Institute (SwRI®) to investigate the durability of several locomotive engine components under various blends of biodiesel from 5 percent biodiesel (B5) of up to 20 percent biodiesel (B20). Due to changes in the U.S. diesel fuel...

Positive Train Location: Final Report

The overall goal of the Positive Train Location (PTL) project is to develop a system capable of providing the onboard PTC system with timely and accurate position reports of the head-of -train (HOT) and the end-of-train (EOT) for determining track discrimination and train length without the use of...

« First
‹‹
…
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
…
››
Last »

USA Banner

Technical Reports