Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management! This paper is related to Jiaxi’s work on investigating the performance degradation and resiliency of freight rail hump classification yards when subject to a service disruption of different durations while subject to various traffic utilization levels. The work was performed using an original simulation model that Jiaxi created in AnyLogic.

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

Zhao, J., and C.T. Dick. 2024. Predicting and measuring service disruption recovery time in railway gravity hump classification yards. Journal of Rail Transport Planning & Management. 29: 100433. doi: 10.1016/j.jrtpm.2024.100433.

In early January, TRAIN students attended the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting in Washington DC. Steven Shi presented his research paper into the rate US railroads adopted heavy axle loads for different freight commodities, while Matt Parkes presented on his modeling of Parallel Systems battery-powered Self-Propelled Autonomous RailCars (SPARCs) to improve intermodal container transit time for short hauls.

In addition, Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick were honored to receive the Outstanding Paper Award from the TRB Hazmat Transportation Committee for the paper entitled “Probabilistic Risk Analysis of Unit Trains versus Manifest Trains for Transporting Hazardous Materials” published in the Accident Analysis & Prevention journal!

TRAIN faculty and staff were represented at several key rail industry conferences this fall. In October, Prof. Dick attended the 2023 American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) Annual Meeting in Indianapolis, Indiana where he became the new Chair of AREMA Committee 16 “Economics of Railway Engineering and Operations”.

Also in October, Jiaxi Zhao attended the 2023 INFORMS Annual Meeting in Phoenix, Arizona where she presented on her research related to disruption recovery time of railway hump classification yards.

Finally, in November, Prof. Dick attended the 2023 Railroad Environmental Conference in Urbana, Illinois where he made a presentation summarizing several active TRAIN research projects related to alternative energy for railway applications sponsored by the FRA, ARPA-E and Parallel Systems, and also on our FRA-sponsored project related to the LCA of emissions for track maintenance activities.

Congratulations to TRAIN doctoral student Rydell Walthall for being awarded the 2023 George W. Hilton Scholarship from the Railway & Locomotive Historical Society!

Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Jiaxi Zhao and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the Transportation Research Record academic journal! This paper is related to Jiaxi’s work on investigating the performance of freight railway hump classification yards subject to variation in arriving train volume due to daily, weekly and longer-range fluctuations in traffic demand. The work was performed using an original simulation model that Jiaxi created in AnyLogic.

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

Zhao, J., and C.T. Dick. 2023. Quantifying the influence of volume variability on railway hump classification yard performance with AnyLogic simulation. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. doi: 10.1177/03611981231160.

Excited to announce that TRAIN PhD student Geordie Roscoe and Prof. Dick have recently published a new research paper in the Transportation Research Record academic journal! This paper is related to the a research project that developed an original rail corridor simulation model and dispatching logic capable of comparing train performance under different densities of virtual signal blocks in addition to conventional fixed blocks and full moving block systems. This paper focuses an the application of the model to a long US freight rail corridor with a mix of extended double track and single-track segments.

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

Roscoe, G.S., and C.T. Dick. 2023. Comparing the effectiveness of fixed, virtual, and moving block train control systems on a mixed single- and double-track US freight rail corridor. Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board. doi: 10.1177/03611981231158641.