American Railroad Bridges

An Analytical Approach for Dynamic Response of Timber Railroad Bridges

In the 1970's it was reported that there were approximately 2300 track miles of timber railroad bridges in the United States and Canada. For short spans, they offer an attractive alternative to other types of bridges as they are economical, faster to construct and easy to maintain. Current design practices do not allow an independent consideration of the effects of the dynamic loads in sizing o...

Field Application of Z-spike Rejuvenation to Salvage Timber Railroad Bridges

The researchers express their gratitude to the Association of American Railroads, Dr. Duane Otter, principal engineer at its Transportation Technology Center, Inc., and Mr. Bill Riehl, director of structures for Rail America for extensive assistance in seeking interested railroad owners with potential sites for field investigation of the shear spiking technique. Mr. Tomasz Gawronski, director o...

Stability assessment method for railroad bridges using acceleration and strain in combination

The stability of a railway bridge is mainly governed by level of acceleration, vertical displacement, and twist. While acquiring acceleration is relatively easy task in the data measurement respective, displacement and twist are very challenging due to lack of appropriate sensors. Furthermore, as most existing displacement sensors are confined to measuring single displacement, twist which is ob...

Railroad Transportation

Trespassing on the Railroad

Greater than half of all the fatal injuries on United States railroads are sustained by trespassers. The paper provides a statistical analysis of the demographics of trespassers, the activities they were engaged in, and the causes of injury. It also analyzes trends over time. The paper finds that the risks of injury and death are particularly acute for males in their 20s and 30s. The annual cas...