January 2024 Issue of RT&S Now Online
Written by David C. Lester, Editor-in-Chief
ATLANTA –– Happy New Year! The January 2024 Issue of Railway Track and Structures is now online.
This month, we’re introducing two new features. The first is “From the Board,” which will appear every other month. This column will be written by our six Editorial Board members to give their insight on rail matters both in and outside of the magazine. We kick off the series with a piece from Bill Riehl, Genesee & Wyoming’s Chief Engineer –– Structures, as well as AREMA’s Senior Vice President for the 2023-2024 year. The person occupying this board position will rotate each year as a new AREMA Senior Vice President takes office. We are very pleased that AREMA have one of their representatives serve on the Editorial Board, as it helps keep RT&S readers keep up with what’s going on with the organization.
Our second new feature is a monthly column by Gary Fry, Ph.D., P.E., entitled “A Deeper Look.” In my view, RT&S should strive to serve as many rail engineering audiences as possible, and this column is geared for the rail engineering professor, along with engineering graduate and undergraduate students. In talking with one of our Board members recently (not Bill Riehl), I learned that the number of rail engineering programs at colleges and universities has dropped significantly over the years. We believe this is due in part to the fact that many engineering professors, as well as students, don’t even think about railroads when they’re preparing classes or enrolled in them. We’ll have more to say about this in the coming months, but even if you’re not a professor or current student, or not even an engineer, reading through Gary’s articles while not worrying about the math will be of value to all RT&S readers.
Our regular monthly feature from the team at Wheel-Rail Seminars, which produces the annual Wheel-Rail Interaction Seminar focuses on Measuring and Designing Rate of Change in Track Alignment at Union Pacific, which was presented at the 2023 Conference.
Readers will recall that Railway Track and Structures now has a partnership with Wheel-Rail Seminars as the presenting sponsor of the two-day Heavy Haul portion of the seminar, and you’ll be hearing a lot more about that in the coming weeks. The 2024 WRI Seminar will be held in Chicago from May 21-24. For more information, check out the WRI website.
We have other articles and features in the January issue, and we hope you enjoy them!
