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Analysis of Lateral Rail Restraint

Rail restraint failure is one of the most prevalent derailment modes in railroad operation. Analytical and experimental investigations of track gauge widening have been undertaken by the Transportation Systems Center ins support of the Federal Railroad Administration's Track Safety Research Program...

Development of a Prototype EMAT System for Inspection of Rails

This is the Final Report of the First Phase of an investigation of the application of Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers (EMATs) to detect flaws in railroad rails. EMAT's generate ultrasonic beams in rails and receive return signals without surface contact and without liquid couplant. This work...

An Analysis of Thermal Track Buckling in the Lateral Plane

The post buckling equilibrium states are determined analytically. To obtain a consisten formulation of the problem, use is made of the principle of virtual displacements and the variation calculus for variable matching points. The obtained formulations are nonlinear, but can be solved exactly....

Longitudinal Forces in Railroad Track

This work is devoted to the theory of design computations for track subjected to thermal and creep forces. The theory of longitudinal forces and displacements arising in continuous welded rail (CWR) track due to temperature changes is mathematically developed. A description of results of...

Bridge Tests by Using the Track Loading Vehicle

The Track Loading Vehicle (TLV) was used to conduct a series of bridge tests. The Big Creek Through Truss Bridge on the Norfolk Southern Railroad in Tennessee was used for thee tests. The theoretical and experimental axial forces in bridge members were compared. The TLC generated influence lines,...

Safety Analysis of the ATCS

There are two reasons to model Advanced Train Control System (ATCS) safety. The first is to provide a general sense of how well the ATCS performs, from the viewpoint of safety, with respect to the current signaling and control systems. The second is to examine the relative contribution to the...

Positive Train Control for Heavy Haul Operations

Positive Train Control offers many safety and operational features that are designed to significantly enhance system reliability and network efficiency for heavy haul rail operations. PTC is intended to provide incremental improvements in train control through a modular design. A manual block...