Rail Projects Shine During Second Day of AREMA Conference

RAILWAY TRACK & STRUCTURES at RAILWAY INTERCHANGE: The education energy was flowing during the second day of the AREMA 2019 technical conference at Railway Interchange in Minneapolis.

The one session that presented to a packed house was on the accelerated construction of a Union Pacific railroad bridge in Wilmington, Ill. The job involved the repair and replacement of three aging structures that crossed the Kankakee River, as well as upgrading three at-grade crossings. Crews had to construct a temporary work bridge at one of the sites, and to pass strict environmental constraints, the contractor used biodegradable hydraulic fluid in the machines needed for construction. A thick layer of stone was placed along the shore, and a turbidity curtain also was used. Accelerated bridge construction methods allowed the temporary span to be built in 90 days. The project was funded by a $1.6 million grant that was designated for high-speed rail.

In a presentation titled “UAVs: Beyond Pretty Pictures: A Case Study in Analyzing the Integrity of UAV-Derived Data for Full-Scale Railroad Infrastructure Design,” Matt Williams and Michael Allen from Norfolk Southern talked about the use of a Phantom 4 Pro on a 5-mile-long test project that involved 23 culvert replacements and an environmental permitting problem. After a rough start, the group re-evaluated their approach and made some improvements, including using Google Maps to set pin drops for navigation. During a second attempt, the top-of-rail distance was one-tenth of an inch, and the team was able to get within 25 feet of the rail. The challenges were with earth cuts and highly wooded areas. The UAV, however, was very helpful when it came to designing and completing a bridge replacement on the project site.

With connected vehicles beginning to take over, landscape research is now being done to create a way where vehicles can communicate with at-grade crossings. In a session titled “Prototype Rail Crossing Violation Warning Phase II—Advancing the Use of Connected Vehicle Technologies to Reduce Crashes at Grade Crossings,” Jeff Utterback, senior research scientist at Battelle Memorial Institute, talked about research involving collecting real-time data from connected vehicles. Researchers are using vehicle-to-infrastructure communication to alert the driver and stop the vehicle short of the grade crossing if necessary. Work on Phase 2 is currently under way.