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Excited to announce that Prof. Dick has recently published a new research paper in the Transportation Research Record academic journal! This paper reviews published literature on the life cycle carbon impact of railway track infrastructure to highlight key differences in the amount of material used and resulting estimates of embodied carbon for different track construction types and maintenance practices. Even for similar track structures, published values show considerable variability due to differing assumptions regarding system boundaries, background data sources, and assumptions regarding energy sources, component maintenance and materials transportation. Because the literature is dominated by non-US studies and track structures are not representative of common heavy haul freight corridors, there is a critical need for US-specific life cycle inventory (LCI) datasets and environmental product declarations. This work was conducted in collaboration with Michigan Technological University and with funding support fom the Federal Railroad Administration.

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

Taeb, M.A.., P. Lautala and C.T. Dick. 2026. Assessing railway track embodied carbon: life cycle inventory literature review. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. doi: 10.1177/03611981261434227.

Interface: The Journal of Wheel/Rail Interaction recently published an article entitled “Train Control Systems, Electrification, and Automation: Considering the Near Future of Railroading” based on Prof. Dick’s presentation at the WRI 2025 Heavy Haul Conference held in Kansas City. The article appears online here.

Thank you to TRAIN MS students Juliana Johnson and Matthew Friar for presenting their research posters at the UT Austin CAEE Grad Symposium! Juliana presented on her research simulating the performance and reliability of shared passenger-freight rail corridors on modern railway operating practices, while Matthew presented his work examining how well intercity passenger rail connects students to educational institutions and veterans to medical centers. Thanks for representing TRAIN so well!

In late February, TRAIN graduate and undergraduate student researchers toured of the Austin Cap Metro Rail Operations Center and DMU Maintenance Facility. A huge thank you to the rail operations team at CapMetro for giving TRAIN a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at the train dispatching and maintenance processes that keep the Red Line commuter service operating smoothly!

Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Diwen “Steven” Shi and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the Transportation Research Record academic journal! This paper examines how the diesel fuel saved by adding a Battery Electric Locomotive (BEL) to a freight train consist varies according to route topography, train weight, train resistance, battery storage capacity, and the efficiency of the traction battery system. The paper also examines the relative costs and benefits of different BEL implementation strategies to identify pareto-optimum combinations of BEL battery size and charging rate across each study corridor. To maximize return on BEL investment, it is critical to size BEL battery capacity to the unique energy characteristics of each route, and implement an appropriate terminal charging strategy to complement regenerative braking energy captured along the route. The paper was completed in collaboration with Mike Copley, who started this research when he was one of Prof. Dick’s MS students at UIUC.

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

Shi, D., M.J. Copley and C.T. Dick. 2026. Sensitivity of potential battery electric locomotive energy benefits to freight railway operating characteristics and charging strategies. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. doi: 10.1177/03611981251414676.

TRAIN grad students presented two posters at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting held in Washington DC during early January 2026. Qianqian presented on her work to compare the performance and resource requirements of container terminals designed to support Self-Propelled Autonomous Railcars (SPARCs) in comparison to conventional intermodal trains, while Matthew presented his work on estimating the potential of intercity passenger rail to connect student populations to colleges and universities, and veterans to medical centers.

Congratulations to the CE 397 RTD Railway Terminal Design & Operations students on a fantastic presentation of their semester project! The students were tasked with the preliminary layout and control system design of a major hump classification yard. Always exciting to see the designs these students create, especially when printed to scale on huge roll plots!

In November, TRAIN faculty and students travelled to Colorado Springs, CO to attend the “Rail Research Week” event that brought together the 13th International Heavy Haul Association Conference and the 14th World Congress on Railway Research. The first-ever co-location of these two major international railway industry events was a tremendous opportunity to promote TRAIN research to the global freight and passenger railway community while meeting with our industry sponsors and academic collaborators.

TRAIN researchers were authors or co-authors of six papers and posters presented at the conference, including a WCRR paper entitled “Life Cycle Information Models, Proof of Concept LCA Tool and Sensitivity Analysis of Embodied Carbon and Emissions of Railway Track Maintenance Activities” presented by our collaborators at Michigan Technological University, and “Quantitative Analysis of Freight Train Length and Derailment Risk” (WCRR) presented by our collaborators at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

TRAIN lab PhD student Rydell Walthall presented two papers related to his ongoing dissertation research on optimizing the economics of railway electrification: “Incremental Diesel-Electric Freight Locomotive Conversions as a Pathway to Decarbonization” (IHHA) and “Options for Decarbonizing Commuter Rail on a Freight Corridor – a Case Study in Central Texas” (WCRR).

TRAIN lab PhD student Steven Shi presented a portion of his dissertation work in the form of an IHHA e-poster entitled “Simulation and Optimization Approach to Identify Routes Maximizing the Diesel Energy Savings Potential of Battery Electric Locomotives”.

Finally, Prof. Dick presented a WCRR paper entitled “Attracting a New Generation of Railroaders in North America through K-12 Activities and Programs” authored with Dr. Pasi Lautala from Michigan Tech. For this paper, Dr. Dick and Dr. Lautala were subsequently honored with the WCRR Award for Best Paper Inspiring the Future of Rail Transport!

In late October, Prof. Dick and TRAIN grad student Qianqian Tong travelled to the 2025 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Atlanta, GA, along with several other members of the UT Transportation Group. Qianqian presented on her work to develop a modeling framework for routing containers through intermodal networks, including rail link and terminal performance functions that vary transit time according to assigned demand, and a solution approach to achieve equilibrium transit times. Qianqian is developing this modeling framework as part of new and ongoing freight network modeling projects for DoE ARPA-E and the Texas Department of Transportation.

In early November, Prof. Dick attended the 27th Railroad Environmental Conference held in Urbana, IL. He presented on three different research projects, including ongoing work with TRAIN PhD student Steven Shi on identifying optimal Battery Electric Locomotive deployment strategies, our recently completed FRA-sponsored project with Michigan Technological University on Life-Cycle Analysis of Track Maintenance, and our recently completed work with the National Renewable Energy Lab for DoE ARPA-E to compare the performance of Parallel Systems vehicles to conventional intermodal trains on two different study corridors.

The TRAIN lab team was excited to host a visit from Calum Phelan and Huayu Duan of the Birmingham Centre for Railway Research & Education (BCRRE) at the University of Birmingham in the UK! BCRRE and TRAIN have many common areas of railway research, and we look forward to developing future collaborations.