(The Pueblo Chieftain posted the following story by John Norton on its website on October 15.)
PUEBLO, Colo. — Participants in the sixth World Congress on Railway Research got an update on everything from remote-controlled trains to crash tests to the latest experiments to increase the amount freight trains can haul while reducing stress on track and equipment.
And much of that information was generated just a few miles outside of Pueblo at the Transportation Technology Center Inc.
TTCI President Roy Allen and a number of researchers working both in Pueblo and under contract in far-flung locations delivered papers at the conference this month in Edinburgh, Scotland. The event drew 700 of the world’s top rail experts.
Allen joined Richard Bowker, the Scottish minister for transport, in welcoming delegates and also delivered a talk on the work being done here and in other locations by TTCI personnel. They also were treated to some of the shocking videos of crash tests staged at the center in an effort to develop safer passenger cars.
Pueblo representatives also delivered several papers on subjects covering air pollution, safety and ways to make freight-hauling more profitable.
Jim Lundgren delivered a paper by Brian Smith on locomotive emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency has ordered that new diesel-electric locomotives purchased in 2005 will have emission levels that are far below today?s limits, and new models are being tested at the Pueblo center.
TTCI Vice President Keith Hawthorne gave a paper on work done to reduce stress on railroads in order to get the most out of the costly equipment.
A part of that is increasing the carrying potential of railroads without wearing out that equipment, and to expand on that, TTCI’s Semih Kalay discussed heavy-axle load research. The center here has been one of the leaders in ongoing development of stronger materials and wheel assemblies to increase the amount of goods freight trains can haul as well as longer-lasting rail.
Allen explained that the railroad industry increased carloads by nearly 50 percent in the 1970s “with serious safety and economic consequences caused by inadequate track design and maintenance and train handling problems.”
That’s why in 1988, the Association of American Railroads, in cooperation with the Federal Railroad Administration, began a long-term research program using the TTCI’s Facility for Accelerated Service Testing (FAST) track at the center that has helped develop ways of increasing capacity.
The AAR has run the Pueblo center since the 1980s, leasing it from the U.S. Department of Transportation.
In an overview of the research here, Allen said that increasing rail car axle-load capacity and the use of aluminum cars has allowed coal haulers to significantly improve productivity by using fewer trains to haul the same amount of coal.
Al Reinschmidt discussed wayside detectors that railroads have been using to monitor wear and tear on equipment as it passes. Those detectors have been in use for more than a decade and are constantly being enhanced by TTCI researchers.
One of the newest areas of research is Positive Train Control, something the TTCI’s Alan Polivka spoke on at the conference. For more than 30 years, the federal government and North American railroads have been working on computerized systems to prevent collisions and insure overall safety.
Allen said that the Federal Railroad Administration, Illinois Department of Transportation and the AAR are sponsoring a multi-year program headed by Lockheed Martin. The first phase of the project was completed in October of last year with a successful demonstration of production hardware operating at more than 100 mph. The system is expected to be put into commercial use next year.
Another TTCI employee, Steve Clark, has been spending much of his time in Britain working on long-term study of rail fatigue.
The TTCI was contracted by the owner of Britain’s rail systems to investigate the cause of a number of deadly accidents three years ago and has continued on with a study of weaknesses in the rail and how to prevent problems.
TTCI will be a co-host of the next world conference schedule for Montreal in 2006, and Allen is chairman of the international organizing committee. The last time the conference was held in North America was 1996, when it took place in Colorado Springs.