Trespassing along railroad rights-of-way (ROW) is the leading cause of rail-related deaths. More than 500 preventable trespass fatalities and nearly as many injuries occur each year in the United States, and most of these incidents involve pedestrians. Based on the successful 2008 and 2012 ROW Fatality and Trespass Prevention Workshops, the U.S. Department of Transportation (US DOT) Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) sponsored a third ROW Fatality and Trespass Prevention Workshop from August 4-6, 2015 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The workshop’s program was presented by rail experts and safety professionals who shared their ideas on key issues, best practices, technical developments, human behavior, law enforcement, and public education and awareness outreach methods and techniques related to trespass prevention. The participants represented Federal, State, and local governments, freight and passenger railroads, transit agencies, labor unions, academia, nonprofit organizations, and consultants. Other nations were represented including the UK and Canada. The workshop concluded with the development of 24 high priority recommended actions across five topic areas.
A Low Ground Clearance Vehicle Detection System (LGCVDS) determines if a commercial motor vehicle can successfully clear a highway-rail grade crossing and notifies the driver when his or her vehicle cannot safely traverse the crossing. That is, differences in elevation between the roadway and track at some locations are such that certain vehicles are more likely to become immobilized with the attendant risk of being struck by an oncoming train. To create such a detection system, the Federal Railroad Administration's (FRA’s) Office of Research and Development awarded a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I contract to Advanced Technology and Research (ATR) of Columbia, Maryland to assess whether an LGCVDS is feasible and, if it is possible to develop a conceptual design for such a system. Specifically, ATR was asked to develop a reliable automated active system which would be installed at approaches to identified high-profile grade crossings.
The United States Department of Transportation’s (US DOT) John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center (Volpe Center), under the direction of the US DOT Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development (R&D), conducted an independent internal evaluation of the FRA-sponsored Trespass Prevention Research Study (TPRS). The Volpe Center conducted the TPRS from 2009-2013 to develop and demonstrate trespass prevention and mitigation best practices. The study focused on a 7-mile stretch of South Florida Regional Transportation Authority (SFRTA) Right-of-Way (ROW) on which SFRTA, CSX, and Amtrak trains operate, and 5 miles of Florida East Coast Railway Company (FEC) ROW in the City of West Palm Beach, Florida. This evaluation focused on the design and implementation of the TPRS rather than the impact or efficacy of specific trespass prevention treatments. The evaluation identified lessons learned to use in the design and implementation of future trespass prevention studies.
Major safety culture (SC) initiatives initiated in the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research, Technology and Development (RT&D), such as Clear Signal for Action (CSA), the Investigation of Safety Related Occurrences Protocol (ISROP), the Participative Safety Rules Revision, and the Confidential Close Calls Reporting System (C³RS) have evolved from successful pilot demonstration projects to company-wide and industry-wide initiatives, including Amtrak’s Safe-2-Safer program, the BNSF Railway (BNSF) SC program, Union Pacific Railroad’s Total Safety Culture program, and FRA R&D CSA’s Program for the Passenger/High-Speed Rail Industry, among others. These successful SC pilot initiatives illuminate challenges which occur when similar but larger-scale implementations are evaluated: − How can a very large, complex dynamic corporate railroad organization, with a multitude of crafts and locations, improve upon and institutionalize a stronger safety culture company-wide? − How can FRA R&D support broad scale acceptance, adoption and implementation of stronger safety cultures across the rail industry? To address these key questions, FRA R&D has begun to evaluate company-wide or industry-wide SC initiatives. This report describes the evaluation of one such initiative at BNSF.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) believes that, in addition to process and technology innovations, human-factors-based solutions can significantly contribute to improving safety in the railroad industry. To test this assumption, FRA implemented the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C3 RS), which includes the following: Confidential reporting; Root-cause analysis problem solving by a Peer Review Team (PRT) comprising labor, management, and FRA representatives; Implementation and review of corrective actions, some locally and others with the help of a Support Team made up of senior managers; Tracking the results of change; and Reporting the results of change to employees. Demonstration pilot sites are currently at Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), New Jersey Transit (NJT), and Amtrak. FRA is sponsoring a rigorous evaluation of C³RS functioning with regard to three important aspects: 1. What conditions are necessary to implement C³RS successfully? 2. What is the impact of C³RS on safety and safety culture? 3. What factors help to sustain C³RS over time? The evaluation is organized into baseline, midterm, and follow-up time periods at each site. Two sets of findings are presented here. The first set consists of baseline findings at one demonstration site (Site A), using the following data sources: (1) interviews with workers, managers, and other stakeholders and (2) other project documents, such as meeting notes and newsletters. The second set consists of findings across all demonstration sites and is based on interviews from all sites.
In order to improve safe driving behavior at grade crossings, it is important to understand driver actions at or on approach to those areas. Thus, in order to gain a better understanding of the problem, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development funded a project to study driver activities at or on approach to grade crossings. The findings are discussed in the FRA report titled Driver Behavior Analysis at Highway-Rail Grade Crossings using Field Operational Test Data—Light Vehicles (http://www.fra.dot.gov/eLib/details/L04573). The analysis presented herein is based on follow-on research related to the findings discussed in the aforementioned report. The analysis focused on studying the effect of crossbucks only and crossbucks with STOP signs on driver behavior by examining braking activity and speed profiles on approach to such crossings. The analysis was performed using recently collected data on drivers’ activities at or on approach to grade crossings from the Integrated Vehicle Based Safety Systems (IVBSS) Field Operational Test (FOT) sponsored by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA). The FOT included 108 participants and 16 research vehicles. Figure 1 shows a research vehicle on approach to a crossing equipped with crossbucks. The analysis of driver behavior (speed profile and braking activities) on approach to highway-rail grade crossings reveals that speed reductions are much greater and occur sooner at crossings equipped with STOP signs than at crossings equipped with crossbucks only. Older drivers tend to approach crossings more slowly and slow down more than younger and middle-aged drivers. There were no noticeable gender differences. The analysis of braking activities reveals that almost 100 percent of drivers applied brakes on approach to crossings equipped with STOP signs compared with 56 percent at crossings equipped with crossbucks. Male and middle-aged drivers applied brakes slightly more often than their counterparts on approach to crossings equipped with crossbucks. No clear gender or age-group differences were observed on approach to crossings equipped with STOP signs.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) believes that, in addition to process and technology innovations, human-factors-based solutions can significantly contribute to improving safety in the railroad industry. To test this assumption, FRA implemented the Confidential Close Call Reporting System (C³RS) The overall evaluation is intended to provide knowledge about how C³RS can be implemented successfully, its impact on safety and safety culture, and the conditions necessary for long-term viability The demonstration site that was studied in depth successfully implemented C³RS, which positively impacted safety culture, as shown in the survey and interview data. The peer review team (PRT) implemented some corrective actions. The demonstration site learned that the process of involving senior management in reviewing and implementing corrective actions was not simple and so took action to improve it. Across sites, the railroads saw the value of analyzing trends as opposed to looking only at individual cases. Some of the railroads began using continuous improvement experts to assist with their analysis.
Railroad signaling systems are a vital part of the national railroad that detect trains on the track, identify track fractures, prevent derailments, and alert signal crossing stations when a train approaches. Failures in the signal wire attachments (studs) to rail create uncertainty in the system resulting in reduced train speeds, additional inspection and reinstallation costs, which translate into train delays, downtime, lost productivity and lost profitability for the railroads. Current methods of attaching studs to rails appear to exceed the critical (phase transformation) temperature in the rail material. There have been cases where this has resulted in formation of martensite in the stud-to-rail bond area during cooling. A brittle phase like martensite can produce fractures when stress is applied. Additionally, liquid metal embrittlement has been found in weld joints that involve the use of a brazing compound or solder to attach a signal wire. Methods that involve drilling for a plug attachment through the neutral axis of the rail result in decreased but acceptable fatigue performance. In an effort to avoid damage to the rail, studs have been moved from their ideal location (on the side of the rail head) to the middle of the web, close to or at the rail neutral axis. However, this location for studs causes other problems wires and studs are highly prone to interfere with maintenance-of-way equipment. Under funding from the Federal Railroad Administration, EWI has developed and patented an inertia friction welding (IFW) process that is a field-portable, repeatable, and reliable solution for signal-wire attachments; in addition, the solid-state bonding mechanism provides advantages over the existing bonding solutions. IFW is used to weld a stud of dissimilar metal to rail, which in turn allows a signal wire to be connected.Several weld stud alloys were chosen for process feasibility trials. These trials identified parameters that produced solid-state welds between the stud and rail with no martensite at or near the bond line. Further experimental trials were conducted to define a range for rotational speed and welding thrust load. Repeatability testing was also conducted to ensure that there is no evidence of martensite at or near the bond line after multiple stud weld-remove-and-repair cycles. A conceptual design of a field-portable rail inertia welder, based on EWI's patented portable inertia welding technology, has been completed. The welder is lightweight and capable of being powered by a small electric motor. Internal timing and process controls can maintain and deliver weld quality. The simplicity of the process will yield consistent joint performance with minimal operator training and a variety of environmental conditions. Research is being conducted to examine the reliability of the process through a series of bending fatigue tests, corrosion tests and in service testing.
The Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Office of Railroad Policy and Development believes that, in addition to process and technology innovations, human factors-based solutions can make a significant contribution to improving safety in the railroad industry. This belief led FRA to implement the Confidential Close-Call Reporting System (C3RS), which includes voluntary confidential reporting of near-miss events to a neutral third party; root-cause- problem solving by a Peer Review Team (PRT) composed of labor, management, and FRA representatives; implementation of corrective actions; tracking of the results of change; and reporting of the results of change to employees. Demonstration pilot projects are underway at Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Canadian Pacific Railway (CP), New Jersey Transit (NJT), and Amtrak. C3RS also embodies the risk reduction and system safety principles espoused by FRA's Office of Railroad Safety that supplement conventional regulatory oversight and enforcement activities. FRA is also sponsoring a rigorous evaluation of three important aspects of C3RS functioning: (1) What conditions are necessary to implement C3RS successfully? (2) What is the impact of C3RS on safety and safety culture? (3) What factors help to sustain C3RS over time? This report is published to provide the public and government and industry decision makers with the evaluation’s findings. The findings here cover the midterm analysis of C3RS at one demonstration site (Site “A”) and are based on data collected and analyzed using five data sources: interviews with workers, managers, and other stakeholders; railroad newsletters; corporate safety data; corrective action data; and redacted Multiple Cause Incident Analysis (MCIA) results from a third party.
Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) upgraded the Positive Train Control (PTC) Test Bed to support additional PTC testing configurations under Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Task Order 270. The scope of work provided additional PTC Control Points (CPs), expanded the number of PTC-capable signal blocks, and upgraded existing grade crossings. The following features were added: Two PTC switch CPs and associated signaling; Six 6,000-foot (~11/8-mile) signal blocks with 4-aspect block signaling that is PTC capable; Speed protection capability of 160 mph; and Software Upgrade.
The International Concrete Crosstie and Fastening System Survey assesses the international railway industry’s state of practice regarding concrete crossties and fastening system design, performance, and research needs. The Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) conducted the six-month long survey beginning September 2011. Participants included concrete crosstie and fastener experts around the world. The survey is part of a larger research program funded by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) to study crosstie and fastening systems and performance trends. The research objective is to improve the design and performance of concrete crossties and fastening systems for high-speed and mixed freight passenger service in the United States. The survey results provided useful insight into the potential causes and effects of various system failures. It also shed light on the research being conducted to mitigate these failure modes.
An approach to detecting and characterizing internal defects in rail through the use of phased array ultrasonic testing has shown the potential to reduce the risk of missed defects and improve transverse defect characterization. Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) conducted research and data collection on rail flaw sizing and master gauge development using conventional and phased array ultrasonic testing techniques. This Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) research effort addresses both safety and reliability through the development of the Rail Flaw Library of Associated Defects (RF-LOAD) (Figure 1), which provides a test bed for performing probability of detection (POD) studies on commercially available nondestructive evaluation (NDE) systems, as well as NDE systems that are under development. The continued development of the RF-LOAD has also provided the means to quantify the performance of NDE inspection methods and techniques for rail flaw detection and characterization. Faced with the challenge of improving rail inspection methods and techniques, TTCI invited railroads, rail inspection suppliers, and phased array manufacturers to participate in ultrasonic defect detection and sizing evaluations. The evaluations used both conventional and phased array ultrasonic testing techniques. The RF-LOAD consists of known defects and flaw orientation that can be used for ultrasonic characterization. Phased array applications allow for multiple phase angles to be implemented during a single scan using one transducer, thereby providing the inspector with more information regarding size and orientation of defects. This research focused on the development of rail segments with manufactured, artificial defects (herein referred to as master gauges), collecting field defects, and baseline quantification of rail flaw sizing using conventional and phased array ultrasonic testing approaches. Future phases will involve expansion of the RF-LOAD to include different orientation of defects and data analysis utilizing new developments in ultrasonic testing techniques. The performance of improved rail inspection techniques, such as the phased array method, can be quantified and documented using the information gathered thus far through RF-LOAD master gauge development. Over time, implementation of these improved field inspection techniques will increase safety and decrease rail flaw service failures by reducing missed defects and limiting the number of false alarms.
Trespassing along railroad and transit rights-of-way (ROW) is the leading cause of rail-related deaths in America. Nationally, more than 550 trespass fatalities and nearly as many injuries occur each year. The vast majority of these incidents are preventable. In general, most trespassers are pedestrians who use railroad tracks as a shortcut. The goal of this workshop was to share existing industry leading practices and explore new strategies that the rail industry could pursue to reduce the number of ROW trespasser incidents and fatalities. The Federal Railroad Administration and Federal Transit Administration anticipate that the results of this workshop will be used by U.S. Department of Transportation modal administrations and their stakeholders to enhance safety on the nation’s rail transportation network.
The portable track loading fixture (PTLF) has been used in the field as a nondestructive means of testing track strength, as per the Federal Railroad Administration’s (FRA) Track Safety Standards (TSS) 49 CFR §213.110 (m). The PTLF operates by placing a 4,000-pound-force (lbf) lateral load as close to the shear center of the rails as possible, while the deflection at the gage point is measured. Gage is measured as the lateral distance between the 5/8” points on the two rails below a plane formed by the top of the rails. If measurement is conducted at the web of the rails, it is known as web gage. Although it is widely accepted that rail deflection caused by the PTLF loading has a strong correlation with track strength, repeatability of measurements has been a concern. It has been observed that some locations, which exceed the displacement criteria on initial loadings, are within the limits on subsequent loadings. As a result of these variations, the reliability of the PTLF test has been questioned in the past. Through repeated testing, it has been determined that variability in rail deflection is largely because of “set of the rail” or the difference between the initial unloaded gage and the unloaded gage following a load application and release. Upon unloading, as a result of friction in the ties and tie plates, the rail does not return to its initial position. During testing, the rail set was observed to lead to significant cycle-to-cycle variability in head gage deflection. It has been found that recent track excitation can have a significant impact on the rail set during a PTLF test. These excitations can be caused by external loadings such as trains or hi-rail vehicles passing the location or internal forces caused by factors such as temperature. It is believed that continued vibrations after a train passes a given location, allow the rails to overcome the friction, leaving them in a position of optimal set, whereas other forms of excitation result in more set. This means that recent excitation of the track can change the initial conditions for the PTLF test. With the exact initial conditions for the PTLF test unknown, variability is introduced into the measurements.
Preventing track buckling incidents (Figure 1) is important to the railroad industry. Track materials, rail steel, for example, experience thermal expansion, which refers to the increase in a material’s volume as its temperature rises. Thermal expansion can affect the stability of the railroad track structure by causing a longitudinal force to develop along the rail. If this force becomes too great, and lateral restraint from the rail fasteners and ballast is weak, a track buckle can occur. It is common practice for railroads to impose localized or territory-specific slow orders on days with high ambient temperatures since the risk of track buckling is potentially greater on those days. Numerous factors affect track buckling, but the instantaneous rail temperature (the rail temperature at any given time) and stress-free rail temperature (the temperature at which the rail has no stress, also known as the neutral rail temperature) are two of the most important. Unfortunately, neither of these two temperatures is easily obtainable. Therefore, decisions to impose slow orders are often based on a relatively arbitrary, ambient temperature limit. To help solve the problem of measuring instantaneous rail temperature, the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) Office of Research and Development, through the Small Business and Innovative Research (SBIR) program, has funded the development of a Non-Contact Rail Temperature Measurement sensor (herein referred to as the NCRTM sensor) for installation on a moving railcar. Research and development of the NCRTM sensor occurred between 2009 and 2012 under Phase 1 and Phase 2 SBIR contracts. The first field test of the NCRTM sensor was performed in the summer of 2011. A second field test was conducted in the summer of 2012 using FRA’s R-4 hi-rail research platform. During this field test, data was also collected from thermocouples to serve as a “ground truth” check, as well as from two commercial non-contact sensors that provided a minimum baseline performance standard for the NCRTM sensor. Initial results from the field test showed good correlation between the thermocouple and NCRTM data. Installation and in-service testing on a full-size railcar are currently being planned.
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA)’s Office of Research and Development has funded the development of an ultra-portable ride quality meter (UPRQM) under the Small Business and Innovative Research (SBIR) program. Track inspectors can use the UPRQM to locate segments of track that may have safety defects such as irregular track geometry or poor vertical support. In addition, the UPRQM can be used by researchers studying rail vehicle dynamics and vehicle-track interaction issues. The UPRQM runs on a standard laptop or tablet and has an intuitive user interface that consists of vertical, lateral, and longitudinal acceleration strip charts, a list of exception locations, and a Geographic Information System (GIS) display. These features allow the user to pinpoint his/her location on the track, as well as the location of nearby grade crossings, bridges, and track distance markers. Additional software features include data analysis tools that can be used by researchers investigating rail vehicle dynamics. Ride comfort and health exposure analyses based on the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 2631, “Mechanical vibration and shock – Evaluation of human exposure to whole-body vibration,” can also be performed. The hardware is ultra-portable and consists of a compact GPS unit, as well as a compact tri-axis accelerometer unit, both of which are connected to the user’s laptop via a USB or wireless connection. The UPRQM has been beta-tested by FRA inspectors in the field, as well as by researchers at the John A. Volpe National Transportation Systems Center. Feedback from these end users has helped shape the features and functionality of the UPRQM.
Robust, reliable, and interoperable wireless communication devices or technologies are vital to the success of positive train control (PTC) systems. Accordingly, the railway industry has started adopting software-defined radios (SDRs) for packet-data transmission. SDR systems realize previously fixed components as reconfigurable software. Recognizing the potential uses of SDRs for PTC systems, this project developed a railway cognitive radio (Rail-CR) that implements artificial intelligence decision making capability in concert with an SDR to adapt to changing wireless conditions and learn from past experience. Objectives of the project included: developing a concept of operations for wireless data communication link adaptation based on use-case scenarios for packet radio systems; designing and implementing decision making architecture on an SDR; designing strategies for radio environment observations; defining operational objectives and performance metrics; and designing and exercising a test plan to demonstrate performance under varying conditions. The decision making architecture of the Rail-CR begins with observations of the wireless operating environment and performance metrics. An event, such as an increase in ambient noise or a jamming signal that degrades performance, defines when the cognitive engines (CEs) engage. The architecture enables adaptation to new situations and the capability to learn from past decisions. The Rail-CR was tested under a variety of interference conditions designed to simulate real-world experiences. Each test case compared the SDR with no cognition to cognitive operations. Results show that a radio operating with no cognition was unable to mitigate interference conditions causing either significantly high errors or a loss of connectivity. By changing SDR parameters, the CE was able to successfully address these issues.
