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The Federal Railroad Administration sponsored a research team from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign to conduct laboratory and field research of railroad bridge transitions between September 2011 and December 2015. In this report, researchers present an interpretation of Amtrak and...
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) contracted Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to conduct a broad analysis of the impacts of Positive Train Control (PTC) systems and technology on track maintenance. This research was conducted between September 2019 and September 2020. This...
FRA sponsored Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to perform evaluation tests on tri-couplers designed and produced by Sharma Associates, Inc. (SA). SA designed and produced the freight car Electrical Power Supply System (EPSS), while TTCI provided support for the installation and...
EWI completed research and testing of an automated weld repair process for austenitic manganese steel railroad frogs. This report covers the second of two projects sponsored by the Federal Railroad Administration and EWI executed this research between March 2016 and June 2022. In this phase of...
Researchers developed a second-generation RAdar Ballast Inspection Tool (RABIT) based on ground-penetrating radar (GPR) for use by track inspectors. This system is much lighter (26 lbs/11.8 kg) than its predecessor and is portable. It has a single bi-static antenna pair that straddles the tie,...
This report documents the results of a study of railroad voice communications from three large (Class I) freight railroad dispatch centers. The purpose of the research was to gain an understanding of the types of information that are exchanged between railroad personnel and to determine the...
This report is a follow on of the first phase of a Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)-sponsored project to evaluate lateral ballast behavior and how mechanics-based track geometry deterioration models forecast field behavior. In Phase II of the project, Transportation Technology Center, Inc....
The U.S. railroad industry is facing critical knowledge loss of invaluable safety leadership expertise due to employee separations and a retiring workforce. The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sponsored TrueSafety Evaluation, LLC, in partnership with Perigean Technologies, to conduct...
Between August 2019 and May 2022, the Federal Railroad Administration sponsored researchers from Rutgers University, the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Applied Research Associates, and the University of Houston to develop a risk analysis methodology for railroad transportation of...
This report discusses a comprehensive fatigue and fracture characterization of modern head-hardened rails in reference to legacy rails. The focus is in on detail (i.e., transverse) fracture, the effects of the microstructural gradient in the railhead, and residual stresses caused by head-...