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Lightning and Its Effects on Railroad Signal Circuits

This study discusses the occurrence of lightning, its effects on railroad signal equipment, and protection of such equipment from lightning damage, with special attention to known protective techniques which are employed in a variety of situations in the power, communications, and railroad...

Improved Passenger Equipment Evaluation Program

The status of two foreign rail technologies is analyzed in this second of four semiannual reports. The two technologies are Trucks and Carbody Construction. Trucks are discussed from the viewpoint of their function in the rail vehicle suspension system. This function consists of vehicle guidance,...

Guideline Specification for Urban Rail Cars

This document is the guideline specification to be used as the standard form for the preparation of detail procurement specifications for the design, construction and test of self-propelled urban rail cars. This specification provides guidelines for both commuter and rapid transit rail cars. The...

Fragmentation and Metallurgical Analysis of Tank Car RAX 201

On 28 July 1973, the Ballistic Research Laboratories performed a full-scale fire test on a 33,000 gallon, DOT 112A34OW non-insulated, pressure, rail tank car for the Federal Railroad Administration and Association of American Railroads. The car was filled with liquified petroleum gas (LPG)....

Foreign Rail Technology Application Study

The problems treated in this report refer to: acceptance conditions for locomotives and cars, safety, construction, and maintenance standards for rails and switches, buckling safety of continuously welded rails and its influential factors, track maintenance and inspection methods of the German...

Fatigue Crack Propagation in Rail Steels

In order to establish safe inspection periods of railroad rails information on fatigue crack growth rates is required. These data should come from a sufficiently large sample of rails presently in service. The reported research consisted of the generation and analysis of fatigue crack growth data...