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This report presents findings from focus groups with remote control operators (RCOs) in the United States and Canada. The
purpose was to learn more about remote control locomotive (RCL) operations safety-related issues, lessons learned, and best
practices from those most familiar with the...
This report presents a comparative risk assessment of U.S. remote control locomotive (RCL) and conventional yard switching operations. First, a hierarchical task analysis (HTA) was conducted to provide a detailed description of yard switching tasks. Based on the HTA results, a preliminary hazard...
This report summarizes the work undertaken by the Texas Transportation Institute to document the common teams or
crews that are present within the rail industry and to evaluate the existing crew resource management (CRM) training
methods used in other industries for their applicability to those...
This project examined the structural susceptibility of tank car fittings during derailments. The report identified non-pressure cars as being the most susceptible to derailment damage. A DOT111A100W1 fuel service car was selected for analysis. Two derailment scenarios were modeled. The first...
Transportation Technology Center, Inc., a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads, is conducting a
research project titled, "Damage Assessment of Tank Cars Involved in Accidents." Phase I of the project
evaluated the validity of guidelines currently used to assess the severity of...
Recent gage restraint measurement system (GRMS) developments include the redesign of GRMS vehicles to conduct testing from a deployable axle instead of using freight truck mounted axle and GRMS on hi-rail vehicles. This new test configuration results in boundary condition changes in the applied...
To determine if the use of dynamic rail deflection (RDG) data can be used to determine the effectiveness of top of rail (TOR)
systems, Transportation Technology Center, Inc. and Kelsan Technologies Corporation, with funding from the Federal
Railroad Administration (FRA), engaged in a...
This report documents a test program to determine the material properties (chemical composition, tensile, and fatigue) at ambient and elevated temperatures of a Class A wheel steel as designated by the Association of American Railroads. The 3 temperatures examined included ambient room temperature...
This project quantified the impact performance of draft gears on tank cars for both the 263,000 and 286,000 gross rail load (GRL) conditions and the corresponding effect on the structural integrity of stub sills. Full-scale physical impact testing with an instrumented tank car for the 263,000 GRL...
The average number of Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) reportable broken rail-related derailments between 1995 and
2005 was approximately 28 annually. The annual property damage resulting from the accidents was approximately $35 million.
Programs cosponsored by FRA and the Association of...