Congratulations to TRAIN graduate student Matthew Friar for being awarded a 2025 Railway & Locomotive Historical Society Scholarship! Matthew becomes the fourth student advised by Prof. Dick to win a R&LHS Scholarship.

In early April, TRAIN students traveled to Dresden, Germany for RailBelgrade 2025, the 11th International Conference on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (ICROMA).

Qianqian Tong presented a paper entitled “Optimal Layout Planning Method for Rail-road Intermodal Container Terminals” that describes part of our ongoing ARPA-E project on modeling the efficiency and energy consumption of multi-modal container flows.

Steven Shi presented a poster entitled “Combination of Simulation and Optimization of Freight Railroad Vertical Alignment to Maximize Diesel Saving Benefits of Battery Electric Locomotives (BELs)” that makes initial steps towards defining and identifying the sections of a rail network with the optimal grade profile for BEL deployment.

Although not in attendance, Prof. Dick was a co-author on a paper presented by his collaborators entitled: “Empirical Analysis of Longer Train Derailment Rates and Causes”. The conference also offered a fantastic opportunity for the students to explore the local rail system!

Rail-themed outreach to K-12 students is one approach to introducing students to the railroad industry and directing more rail-aware students into engineering and transportation programs. In partnership with Michigan Technological University, TRAIN researchers recently completed a project sponsored by the US Federal Railroad Administration to develop a “Guidebook for Railway-themed K-12 STEM Distance Learning Activities”. This education project developed new rail-themed K-12 STEM distance learning activities, adapted current in-person activities to remote use, enhanced activities with 3-D printing and computer “gamification” code, and documented existing online activities in a rail-themed K-12 STEM distance learning activity guidebook.

The project team developed 14 different activities for inclusion in the guidebook. The activities cover different facets of railway transportation and include a mixture of digital activities and hands-on desktop activities that can be conducted synchronously or asynchronously. The activity descriptions are modeled after formats used by websites that are popular with educators for sharing STEM activity and curriculum components. Given this educator focus, each activity description includes a summary of necessary prerequisite knowledge, connections to STEM learning points, lesson closure questions, and a link to an interactive online quiz to assess student learning.

The guidebook and activity descriptions can be accessed on the Michigan Tech Rail Learning System.

Play the Train Shunting Puzzle that was redeveloped and enhanced through this project!

The final project report can be cited as follows:
Dick, C.T., and P.T. Lautala. 2025. Development of the Guidebook for Railway-themed K-12 STEM Distance Learning Activities. US Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Final Report DOT/FRA/ORD-XX/XX. Washington, DC, USA. (In Press).

TRAIN grad students presented two posters at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting held in Washington DC during early January 2025. Steven presented on his work to examine the feasibility of Gravity Battery-Electric Trains on mine-to-port railways while Wang presented his work on estimating aerodynamic drag coefficients for platoons of Self-Propelled Autonomous Railcars (SPARCs) transporting intermodal containers.

In addition, TRAIN graduate Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick were honored to receive the Outstanding Paper Award from the TRB Hazmat Transportation Committee for the paper entitled “Quantifying the Influence of Tank Car Position and Train Configuration on the Risk of Rail Transport of Class 3 Flammable Liquids” published in the Transportation Research Record journal!

As the calendar turns to 2025, TRAIN is excited to begin research work as part of the National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) funded by the Federal Railroad Administration! As the first academic research and education center of excellence supported by the FRA, the NURail CoE will conduct research, education and technology transfer with the aim of developing solutions that will lead to a safer, more efficient, and reliable passenger and freight rail transportation system. Led by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, the other center partners are the 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. TRAIN researchers are excited to partner with these distinguished institutions that are leaders in railway engineering and transportation research and education!

The TRAIN Lab is excited to be part of the new Rail Center for Research Enhancing Shortline Transportation (RailCREST) that was recently selected for a $6.87 million Federal Railroad Administration grant through the 2024 Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements (CRISI) program. Led by Penn State Altoona, Rail CREST will bring together faculty and researchers from six partnering institutions: Kansas State University, University of Texas at Austin, Auburn University, University of South Carolina and University of New Mexico. This collaboration will facilitate 10 targeted research projects to provide practical, cost-effective solutions tailored to the unique needs of short line rail operators. The TRAIN lab will lead two of these projects, examining best practices to streamline interchange through better design and operations at the interface between Class 1 and shortline railroads, and developing tools that can quantify the life-cycle benefits of last-mile transportation via shortline railways compared to highway trucks. We are excited to begin this work in late 2025!

Read more about RailCREST here.

On November 13-14, 2024, TRAIN was excited to host a visit from Dr. Riley Edwards, Assistant Professor, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, who gave a seminar entitled “Leveraging Emerging Railway Track Health Data for Track Condition Assessment and Buckle Risk Hot Spot Detection”. It was great to see Riley and learn more about his ongoing research while discussing plans for collaboration through the new FRA-sponsored National University Rail Center of Excellence. Both UIUC RailTEC and the UT TRAIN Lab are members of this exciting new academic railway research, education and technology transfer consortium.

It was a busy fall semester of conferences for TRAIN faculty and students!

In September, Prof. Dick travelled to Louisville, KY to attend the AREMA Annual Conference and Chair the meeting of AREMA Committee 16 (Economics of Railway Engineering & Operations).

In October, Prof. Dick travelled to the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association Eastern & Southern Region Meeting held in Jacksonville, FL to present on the challenges and opportunities of alternative energy locomotive development in the shortline and regional railway context.

Later in October, Prof. Dick and TRAIN doctoral students Qianqian Tong and Steven Shi travelled to the INFORMS Annual Meeting in Seattle, along with several other members of the UT Transportation Group. Qianqian presented on her work to optimize the layout of inland truck-rail intermodal terminals. Steven presented on his work to evaluate the optimal deployment of battery electric locomotives across different battery sizes, route characteristics, train properties, and charging strategy. Prof. Dick also presented on TRAIN graduate Jiaxi Zhao’s research to model railway network dynamics with multi-yard simulation and mainline interaction.

At the same time, TRAIN doctoral student Rydell Walthall presented on his research to evaluate the costs and benefits of modern options for freight railway electrification at the NEMA Railroad Electrification Coalition meeting in Arlington, VA. Later in October, Prof. Dick presented on this same research project at the 26th Railroad Environmental Conference held in Urbana, IL.

Finally, in early November, prof. Dick had the honor of travelling to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign to deliver an invited WW Hay Railroad Engineering Seminar on Modeling the Economics of Modern Options for Mainline Freight Railway Electrification.

Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the IET Intelligent Transportation Systems academic journal! This paper investigates how classification yard simulation can supplement historical operating data in making improved predictions of delayed freight train departures. A unique aspect of this paper is that it was developed through our international collaboration with railway researchers at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden. We’ve enjoyed our long-term collaboration with Niloofar Minbashi and Markus Bohlin at KTH, including a trip to visit them in Stockholm in summer 2022!

The reference and DOI link for the paper is as follows:

Minbashi, N., J. Zhao, C.T. Dick and M. Bohlin. 2023. Enhancing freight train delay prediction with simulation-assisted machine learning. IET Intelligent Transport Systems. doi: 10.1049/itr2.12573.