Research rules in a capacity context at AAR's annual TTCI event in Colorado
Greetings from Pueblo, Colo., a town local officials refer to as the “City of Excellence” and Association of American Railroads (AAR) officials call research city. It’s here that AAR subsidiary the Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI) runs a major railroad research facility and hosts an annual research review.
I attended the first — and busiest — day of this year’s AAR Research Review on March 4 at the city’s convention center. The event drew the most-ever attendees in its 13-year history, said TTCI President Roy Allen during his introduction. By my rough count, there were more than 400 in attendance (with well more than half sitting in the back of the large meeting room, a la a college lecture — for the record, I sat in the middle). Attendees hailed from railroads and suppliers in North America (BNSF, CSX, CPR, UP, Amtrak, MTA Metro-North, Amsted Rail, VAE Nortrak, HDR) and abroad (Brazil’s MRS and the United Kingdom’s Network Rail and Balfour Beatty Rail plc).
The turnout wasn’t surprising given the event’s theme: “Technology’s Role in Improving the Capacity of Railroads.” Capacity continues to be a hot industry topic.
“The 800-pound gorilla is capacity and we need to improve the role of technology in expanding capacity,” said Allen. “We as technologists in this room have a large role to play.”
Thirteen TTCI engineers, investigators, scientists and researchers spent the next eight hours — minus a few breaks and a 90-minute lunch — giving 16 presentations to describe how ongoing R&D at the center will play a lead role in helping railroads boost productivity, improve network reliability and asset utilization, and reduce maintenance time and track down time.
I had previously heard of some of the equipment and techniques discussed, such as wheel impact load detectors, hot bearing detectors, the development of new rail steels and crossties, and recent revenue-service implementation of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. But some of the R&D was new to me.
For example, TTCI is developing an automatic wheel/rail contact inspection system that would detect truck hunting risks on tangent track and rollover and truck steering risks on curves — payoffs that would help railroad improve network reliability and boost system velocity, said Senior Engineer Randy Thompson. This year, TTCI expects to start implementing the system on a BNSF track geometry car and contact other railroads to expand implementation, he said.
TTCI also is developing electroslag rail welding for standard welds that would reduce welding time by 10 percent and cut per-weld costs compared with a thermite weld. Revenue service testing could begin in 2009, said Senior Engineer Dan Gutscher.
There was plenty more, which I’ll try to chronicle in our next issue. And Day No. 2 (which is today, March 5) — featuring the traditional track walk and presentations at the test center itself — figures to add to the dozens of scribbled pages in my notebook. Cheers.
I attended the first — and busiest — day of this year’s AAR Research Review on March 4 at the city’s convention center. The event drew the most-ever attendees in its 13-year history, said TTCI President Roy Allen during his introduction. By my rough count, there were more than 400 in attendance (with well more than half sitting in the back of the large meeting room, a la a college lecture — for the record, I sat in the middle). Attendees hailed from railroads and suppliers in North America (BNSF, CSX, CPR, UP, Amtrak, MTA Metro-North, Amsted Rail, VAE Nortrak, HDR) and abroad (Brazil’s MRS and the United Kingdom’s Network Rail and Balfour Beatty Rail plc).
The turnout wasn’t surprising given the event’s theme: “Technology’s Role in Improving the Capacity of Railroads.” Capacity continues to be a hot industry topic.
“The 800-pound gorilla is capacity and we need to improve the role of technology in expanding capacity,” said Allen. “We as technologists in this room have a large role to play.”
Thirteen TTCI engineers, investigators, scientists and researchers spent the next eight hours — minus a few breaks and a 90-minute lunch — giving 16 presentations to describe how ongoing R&D at the center will play a lead role in helping railroads boost productivity, improve network reliability and asset utilization, and reduce maintenance time and track down time.
I had previously heard of some of the equipment and techniques discussed, such as wheel impact load detectors, hot bearing detectors, the development of new rail steels and crossties, and recent revenue-service implementation of electronically controlled pneumatic brakes. But some of the R&D was new to me.
For example, TTCI is developing an automatic wheel/rail contact inspection system that would detect truck hunting risks on tangent track and rollover and truck steering risks on curves — payoffs that would help railroad improve network reliability and boost system velocity, said Senior Engineer Randy Thompson. This year, TTCI expects to start implementing the system on a BNSF track geometry car and contact other railroads to expand implementation, he said.
TTCI also is developing electroslag rail welding for standard welds that would reduce welding time by 10 percent and cut per-weld costs compared with a thermite weld. Revenue service testing could begin in 2009, said Senior Engineer Dan Gutscher.
There was plenty more, which I’ll try to chronicle in our next issue. And Day No. 2 (which is today, March 5) — featuring the traditional track walk and presentations at the test center itself — figures to add to the dozens of scribbled pages in my notebook. Cheers.
Posted by: 
Jeff Stagl | Date posted: 3/5/2008
Comments
Posted by sierra on 3/31/2008 10:57:45 AM
Re the large retro Amtrak union pay increases...I heard the other side of that is Amtrak is retroactively increasing medical premiums, so what ultimately ends up in the workers' pockets will be negligble. If this is correct, why isn't it mentioned right along with what looks like a huge windfall?
