Now in another mode,
when we're talking about moving passengers
and freight by rail
that is overseen by the
Federal Railroad Administration.
And there's a lot going on,
you've probably heard a lot about high speed rail.
Well the person we're having to talk to you today
is going to focus on a number of other activities
in the Federal Railroad Administration.
We're delighted to have Melissa Shurland,
who is the program manager for Rail Energy, Environment and Engine, or E3, Technology,
under the Federal Railroad Administration.
Melissa.
Thank you, Mr. Gee.
Good morning ladies and gentlemen.
My name is Melissa Shurland and I'm a program manager
at FRA, which is the Federal Railroad Administration,
Office of Research and Development.
Today in my presentation we'll look at how engineers
at FRA help
move the nation's rail network into the future.
I'll give you an overview of FRA's mission.
Our Research and Development Program methodology,
examples of our R&D projects
and what engineers at FRA do.
Our main concern is safety.
FRA develops and enforces comprehensive safety regulations
for freight and passenger rail transportation.
These standards are the minimum standards for operating
rail transportation in our nation.
We also administer financial assistance
loan and grants program
so that railroads can improve and rehabilitate this infrastructure.
And this is needed as you saw with the highway question of making sure that our roads are healthy.
Our railroads need to be healthy as well.
FRA also oversees Amtrak's budget and finances as well as their
inner city passenger rail program.
FRA is also tasked with implementing government programs and initiatives,
such as the high speed inner city passenger rail program,
the positive train control implementation program (PTC)
as Mr. Valdes mentioned.
PTC is a form of CBTC, computer based train control.
As well as our national rail plan.
As I said, our research program is primarily safety focused and covers both freight and passenger operation.
So how do we go ahead and solve our research issues?
This slide shows the approach that we take
for many research programs.
First we identify the problems
from our accident database and other sources.
We develop hypotheses about this problem and
perform tests and simulations to assess the baseline situation.
The results from such tests allows us to refine our hypotheses.
Furthermore, we adjust our baseline and develop
new technology to make train transportation safer.
I'm going to show you
what our baseline problem looks like.
This is a baseline testing of our tank cars
that operate on the railroad.
This test simulates a currently designed tank car being
impacted by the coupler of another rail car
in a derailment situation.
As you can see,
the coupler actually punctures the tank car
and this would be a tank car that would be
carrying things such as chlorine gas,
which is very hazardous.
And this is one of the problems that we are
protecting against with our research.
With our R&D effort, we have developed new,
advanced design for rail tank cars.
Here's the testing of the new and improved tank car.
And once again the impact is the
same coupler system
symbolizing a coupler from another rail car.
And with this new design, we get no puncture,
which is what we want,
ensuring safe rail transportation.
Other than equipment issues,
we also have to maintain our tracks and substructures.
As long as the equipment are designed safely,
if we have bad tracks,
we will run into problems as well.
Some of the problems that we see in the railroads are
wide gauges,
worn rails,
broken rails as well.
We also have an
issue of lateral misalignment which we call
sun kinks.
And these issues pop up in the summer time
when the temperature of the rail elevates above
a certain point.
And they happen very rapidly.
A situation like this will cause
derailment on the railroads
injuring passengers,
damaging freight
as well as nearby residents can be harmed,
depending on the goods that are being transported.
So FRA R&D is focused on addressing
some of these problems.
So how do we address these issues?
We have developed what we call a track research car
that traverse our rails
and detect defects
within the rails themselves, the substructure
as well as the components that hold them together.
What you see there are three types of the cars we have.
Our rail joint bar inspection system
detects cracks in the joint bars,
which are devices that connect the ends of two rails.
This system prevents derailments.
So where do we do our testing?
Our testing is done at our transportation technology center
located out in Pueblo, Colorado.
This set is used by our office of R&D, auto government agencies such as FTA
and the Transportation Security Agency, TSA, as well
as the railroad industry.
We also have a simulator that can be used
by locomotive engineers
to learn how to
move the train.
These simulators
track the performance of the human - vehicle interface
as well as the various components that are located in the lab.
I'll show an example of the baseline of our current
passenger train system
and the research that we're doing to improve that system.
The top frame shows the conventionally designed rail car
impacting a locomotive.
And what you see is
loss of occupant space as well as override.
This is a dangerous situation.
The bottom frame shows a newly designed technology car
crash energy management that controls
the crash of a rail vehicle.
It impacts a much heavier vehicle
and maintains its place on the rail as well
as preserve the space where the passengers
will ride out the crash.
The bottom frame is a type of technology that FRA's promoting
for future rail car designs.
So what does an engineer at FRA do?
Our mechanical and civil engineers
develop technology such as onboard and wayside equipment
health monitoring systems
that will tell you whether or not the equipment on the trains
are at the point where they need to be replaced or repaired.
We developed the crash energy management system you saw on the
passenger train.
We also look at the track and the substructures
to make sure that they're as
safe as possible.
Our electrical and electronics engineers.
We look at positive train control systems such as CBTC
trespasses detection and prevention system to ensure that
people don't lose their lives while on the railroads.
The human factor engineers look at
how employees of railroad,
how working in the environment affects their job performance.
They look at stuff, as the fatigue after hours of service,
the human - machine interface,
as well as organizational behaviors and dynamics.
Human factors develop what we call the CTIL, which is a cab
technology integration laboratory,
that assess performance of locomotive engineers.
So it was my hope today that I leave you with a sense of what
an engineer at FRA does and pique your interest
about engineering in general.
Thank you.