Technical Reports
Reference-Free Estimates of Railroad Bridge Displacement under Revenue Service Traffic
A top bridge research priority for railroad owners is to determine bridge displacements under in-service train loadings. Recent studies have demonstrated that displacement data assists railroad owners in prioritizing maintenance, repair, and replacement policies. However, displacement...
Measuring the Displacement Environment Between a Locomotive and Trailing Car
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) funded a project conducted by Transportation Technology Center, Inc.’s (TTCI) Association of American Railroads’ (AAR) Natural Gas Fuel Tender (NGFT) Technical Advisory Group (TAG) in developing industry standards for NGFT tenders. The objective was to...
Concepts for Interoperable Lifecycle Management of Positive Train Control (PTC)
Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) developed initial concepts for a Positive Train Control (PTC) Interoperable Lifecycle Management (ILM) system to support established and evolving industry processes to manage, coordinate, and document changes to PTC throughout its lifecycle. As part...
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Technology and Evaluation Implementation
From June 2015 to January 2018, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) contracted Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to perform a 3-year study to develop guidelines for the implementation of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology by North American railroads. To achieve this goal...
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) Technology Evaluation and Implementation: Appendices A Through F
From June 2015 to January 2018, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) contracted Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) to perform a 3-year study to develop guidelines for the implementation of Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) technology by North American railroads. This document...
Effect of Temperature on Wheel Shelling
In 2014, Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) reviewed and summarized published data and the capabilities of twin disk machines that included a unique machine that allows elevated temperature testing. TTCI suggested a methodology for future testing on this thermally controlled twin disk...
Evaluation of PTC Braking Enforcement Algorithms for Passenger and Commuter Trains
Software algorithms used in Positive Train Control (PTC) systems designed to predict passenger train stopping distance and enforce a penalty brake application must be evaluated to verify their performance, which can be challenging due to variations in operational and equipment characteristics....Extended Field Trials of LRAIL for Automated Track Change Detection
LRAIL is a 3-dimensional laser inspection system that combines high-speed laser triangulation sensors and artificial intelligence to automatically inspect the condition of, and detect safety-related changes in, railway infrastructure. For this project, LRAIL technology was installed on a...