The railroad network carries 40 % of the freight in the US. Railroad bridges are the most critical part of the network and they need to be properly maintained for safety of operations. Railroad managers inspect the bridges to assess their structural condition. Railroad managers are interested in measuring displacements under train crossing events to prioritize their bridge management and safety...

This paper examines the historical impact of railroads on the American economy. Expansion of the railroad network may have affected all counties directly or indirectly – an econometric challenge that arises in many empirical settings. However, the total impact on each county is captured by changes in that county's “market access,” a reduced-form expression derived from general equilibrium trade...

Broken rails are the most common cause of severe freighttrain derailments on American railroads. Reducing the occurrence of broken-rail-caused derailments is an important safety objective for the railroad industry. The current practice is to periodically inspect rails using non-destructive technologies such as ultrasonic inspection. Determining the optimal rail defect inspection frequency is a ...

To determine the employment characteristics of workers covered jointly by old-age and survivors insurance and the railroad retirement program, a sample of the work histories from the Bureau of Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and the Railroad Retirement Board has been analyzed. In the analysis the hypothesis has been developed that, as time progresses, virtually all railroad workers will at some...

material shipments (10–14). Rerouting hazardous materials shipments with the objective of reducing risk is complex because of the many variables that interact to affect risk. Quantitative risk analysis (QRA) of hazardous material transportation dates to the 1970s. Although advances in methodology continue, QRA has matured to the point that it is an effective tool and has been used to inform dec...

This paper addresses the determinants of three types of railroad related fatalities: trespasser fatalities, those at grade crossings, and those involving passengers and employees. Of particular interest are the effects of railroad deregulation (the Staggers Act) on railroad related fatalities. Models are developed using specification error analysis and seemingly unrelated regression. Deregulati...

This is a review of walking tasks in the railroad environment, and the injuries that result from slips, trips, falls, or other acute or even non-traumatic exposures. The lack of federal regulations for railroad walkways has led several states to develop and enforce their own regulations. Support from the research literature for such regulations has come from biomechanical studies of the effects...

This paper presents an economical assessment of the benefits introducing 5G technologies into pilot use cases pertaining to railroad transportation and energy sectors. For each pilots, undergone by EFACEC Engenharia e Sistemas Energia, respectively, under scope H2020 5Growth project, expenditure expected from capabilities over their on-going operations are evaluated regarding Portugal case, als...