Railway Track & Structures - October 2007 - (Page 47)

part in that turnaround. Of course, I’m proud of the fact that TTCI played its part in developing some of that technology. And between us and FRA, with our various investments, we have improved the facility with our various investments, which can only be for the good of the industry. I’ve picked out three areas of our research that I think are significant. The first one is our role in the introduction of 286,000-pound cars, particularly in comparison to what happened when the industry went from 70-ton to 100ton cars. Basically, the lessons learned there involved all the HAL research done here by the industry, including, of course, the FAST program, which has been going on for quite a long time now. The fact is the industry did a lot of homework through our research programs and related activities before the introduction of 286-cars, which led to a relatively successful, smooth and much safer introduction of heavier axle loads than was done in the previous increasing of car weights. I think that was good proof that a bit of research and a bit of experience before you go making significant jumps in axle load or significant jumps in any technology is very worthwhile. More recently, one of the areas that I’m proud TTCI played a major role in is proliferation of wayside detectors and vehicle monitoring from the wayside. We’re still in the early stages of that story, but, nevertheless, it’s been a big success. It’s a series of technologies that the railroads, particularly the chief operating officers, adopted and, indeed, I think, so have the regulatory bodies in this country. At TTCI, we had a bit of vision back when Salient Systems came out with WILD detectors to create a central database and have an array of detectors feeding into a central database in order to provide the historical data for more planned maintenance, rather than a TTCI President Roy Allen. repair-it-when-it-breaks approach. As we know, that’s now in business collecting data from almost 200 different detectors scattered throughout North America. We’ve done limited product development, but we are one of just two suppliers of acoustic bearing detection equipment, which is becoming the next wave of detectors. We got ourselves a little ahead of the curve in terms of machine vision, pioneering that technology to be able through laser-based or visual imaging to measure and monitor various aspects. We’re moving on in that project as part of our research program. There are a couple of contractors who are designing systems to properly inspect safety appliances, which will be the next big research. It’s ongoing right now. From that starting point, we ran up into technology-driven train inspection. The concept is we will have the technology to pretty much do everything train inspectors can do, but do it on more of a performance-based methodology. My third and last example of TTCI success stories is the work done in the United Kingdom on wheel/rail contact fatigue. That came in the wake of a www.rtands.com Railway Track & Structures October 2007 47 http://www.rtands.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Railway Track & Structures - October 2007

Railway Track & Structures - October 2007 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Crossties by the Billions Provide Essentials for Full Support Modern Tools Manage Risk M/W Challenges: Better Management of Thermal Forces in CWR TTCI Celebrates 25 Years as Facility, 10 as Part of AAR Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Website Directory Advertisers Index Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - October 2007

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