RT&S March 2026 Editor’s Notebook –– Comments About This Issue

ATLANTA –– The current issue of Railway Track & Structures, March 2026, has a couple of articles I'd like to bring to your attention.

I don’t usually use this space to preview what is included in the new issue of Railway Track and Structures. I’ve always believed that if you want to learn about what’s in the current magazine, check out the table of contents and look at and read the articles. However, I’m making an exception to that this month because of two very important pieces we have that I believe will leave you thinking about what you can do to help the industry move forward.

First, our regular WRI feature is replaced this month with a special piece on railroad engineering education. As you likely know, there are not many colleges and universities that offer rail engineering programs or courses. However, some do, and many consider the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to be the epicenter of railroad engineering study in North America. The university refers to its substantial rail engineering program as The Rail Transportation and Engineering Center (RailTEC). UIUC has also expanded its reach through a program called the National University Rail Center of Excellence, or NURail CoE. The NURail CoE website explains it best: “The National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) is a nine-university consortium led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) and is the first academic research and education center to be supported by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Railroad Administration. Our mission is to develop solutions that will lead to a safer, more efficient, and reliable passenger and freight rail transportation system and rail infrastructure in the United States. NURail CoE will attract, inspire, and educate a new generation of students in railway transportation engineering and provide them with the knowledge to implement these solutions in their pursuit of rail careers.” The nine universities that make up the consortium are the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, University of Illinois Chicago, University of Delaware, Kansas State University, Michigan Technological University, Morgan State University, Rutgers University, University of Texas at Austin, and Tuskegee University. We introduced the NURail CoE consortium in the March 2025 issue, and we’re including another look at it in this month’s rail engineering education feature.

One of the significant efforts to foster education and collaboration is the work of Wheel Rail Seminars, specifically, its two annual Wheel Rail Interface conferences, Heavy Haul, being held April 22-24 in Dallas, and Rail Transit, being held in Boston September 1-3. Railway Track & Structures has been the presenting sponsor of the Heavy Haul conference for several years, and UIUC is the presenting sponsor for the Principles portion of the Heavy Haul conference. The web journal Interface Journal, a friend to RT&S, is the presenting sponsor of the Principles portion of the Rail Transit conference. 

Another important feature in this issue is one of our two annual “Perspectives” pieces, Engineering Perspectives. The second, Construction Perspectives, appears in our August issue. The Perspectives series is spearheaded by Managing Editor, Jennifer McLawhorn, and is growing in importance and popularity. The Engineering Perspectives piece features news and outlooks from several large engineering firms that offer rail engineering services in their practice portfolio. Although they’re doing great work and are a very important part of the rail industry, we don’t hear much about them, except mentions and some analysis associated with specific projects. We’re trying to change that with this series.