Two Technical Reports From FRA: Concrete Railroad Ties; Visual and Automation-Aided Track Inspections
Written by Jennifer McLawhorn, Managing Editor
FRA
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) has published two technical reports; one on the concrete railroad tie freeze-thaw durability and the other is supplemental to a previous study on track inspections.
The first technical report focuses on the development of “a performance-based manufacturing control process for ensuring the freeze-thaw durability of concrete railroad ties,” and it comes from the partnership of the University of Florida, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and voestalpine Railway Systems Nortrak. The report can be found in its entirety below:
The second technical report is a reference document that accompanies a previously published report entitled “Reducing Hazards Associated with Visual and Automated-Aided Track Inspections, Report No. DOT/FRA/ORD-21/18.” The report below “documents a study in which a team of Volpe human factors researchers applied a hazard analysis method called Systems-Theoretic Process Analysis (STPA) to examine three possible track inspection sociotechnical systems.”
