Testing Facilities & Equipment

The R&D Facilities and Test Equipment Program addresses the acquisition, upgrading, and maintenance of FRA-owned facilities and equipment required to accomplish the whole spectrum of railroad research objectives and projects.

 

R&D Facilities

FRA’s research and testing facilities are located at the 52 square-mile Transportation Technology Center (TTC) near Pueblo CO, which includes laboratories and 48 miles of test tracks for testing a wide range of locomotives, cars, track structures and components for freight, passenger, transit, and high-speed rail operations. TTC is operated by the Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI), a subsidiary of the Association of American Railroads (AAR), under a contract with the FRA.  In addition to the FRA, other organizations use TTC’s testing facilities, including government agencies, the railroad industry, individual railroads, transit operators, and suppliers.

 

R&D Test Equipment

High Speed Research Car, T-16

With the initiation of higher speed service between Washington and Boston and the first issuance of track safety standards for speeds up to 200 mph, accurate parametric measurements which require sophisticated instrumentation have become critical for evaluating the track-train system performance. FRA acquired a Metroliner passenger car from Amtrak that was refurbished and equipped to meet these requirements.  This car (T-16) allows the FRA to examine future high-speed corridors and routes that are intended for upgrading to higher maximum speeds.  It also provides necessary monitoring and research at the high-speed test track at TTC, as well as in the Northeast Corridor and elsewhere in the country. 

Gage Restraint Measurement System (GRMS) Vehicle, T-18

Gage Restraint Measurement System (GRMS) vehicle, T-18, is a performance-based rail restraint measurement car that locates track conditions of weak or failed rail restraint ability of the ties and fasteners to maintain gage under load. When the rail holding capacity of the ties and fasteners of a railroad track is exceeded by the forces generated by the train as it travels, the rails may move apart enough to allow the wheels to drop between the rails causing a “gage widening derailment”. The key to this performance-based approach was development of an index of Projected Loaded Gage (PLG), used to extrapolate the response of track to the heaviest credible loads from measurements of gage using lighter loads. The test load must be light enough to avoid track damage and derailment of the test car, but heavy enough to reveal weak track that allows gage to widen excessively. The GRMS vehicle utilizes this PLG index to determine the probability for derailment and mark the locations along the track where the extrapolated measurement exceed acceptable gage for the type of track tested. The GRMS vehicle eliminates a time-consuming and expensive visual inspection process that is subjective and not always accurate.