For the Fall 2025 semester, TRAIN is pleased to welcome Juliana Johnson, who joins the team as a new MS student having completed her undergraduate degree at Iowa State University, and Heyang Zhang, who joins as a new PhD student having completed his previous degrees at Beijing Jiaotong University and the University of Hong Kong. We’re excited to have them join the TRAIN team!
It was another busy summer of of conferences for TRAIN faculty and students!
May Began with Prof. Dick travelling to Houghton, Michigan to meet with rail research collaborators at Michigan Technological University. It was great to finally visit the Michigan Tech campus in person after all these years of collaboration on numerous research projects!
From Houghton, Prof. Dick travelled to Duluth, MN to Chair the spring meeting of AREMA Committee 16 hosted at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum. The meeting was followed by a fantastic tour of the BNSF Allouez Taconite Transloading Facility in nearby Superior, WI.
From Minnesota, Prof. Dick travelled to Atlanta, GA to attend the 2025 INFORMS Freight Rail Planning & Operations Conference hosted at Norfolk Southern headquarters. TRAIN grad student Matthew Friar also attended the conference where Prof. Dick made a presentation entitled “Network Impacts of Yard and Line Operations”.
Returning to Austin, Prof. Dick then attended the Texas County Judges’ Planning & Design Forum held on the UT campus. This gathering discussed land development, planning and transportation issues of importance to various Texas County Judges who serve as the civic leader or “mayor” for the unincorporated parts of their respective counties. In response to the interest of Travis County Judge Andy Brown in expanding passenger rail in the Austin-San Antonio corridor, Prof. Dick made a presentation on “Passenger Trains of Freight Rail Corridors”.
Things picked up again in June when Prof. Dick travelled to Phoenix, AZ to chair two sessions at the ASCE International Conference on Transportation & Development. From Phoenix, Prof. Dick travelled to Kansas City to attend the WRI 2025 Heavy Haul Conference and make a presentation entitled “TEA Nexus of Train Control, Energy and Automation”.
Finally, In August, Prof. Dick travelled to South Bend, IN to attend the Midwest Rail Conference that also served as the annual meeting of the FRA-funded National University Rail Center of Excellence. At the conference, Prof. Dick moderated the opening plenary on “Hydrogen and Other Alternative Fuels for Railroads”.
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).
Excited to announce that the Federal Railroad Administration has published the TRAIN study entitled “Cost and Benefit Risk Framework for Modern Railway Electrification Options”. Completed in collaboration with independent consultants Michael Iden and James Blaze, the study developed a framework for evaluating the updated costs and benefits of freight railway electrification considering traditional and modern innovative methods. The team reviewed past and current electrification studies and identified technologies and strategic operation and implementation approaches to improve benefits and reduce cost and risk. The “Cost, Uncertainty, and Risk of Railway Electrification with New Technologies” (CURRENT) model was developed as a risk-based economic analysis framework to aid railroads in evaluating electrification investments, and inform further supplier research and development.
The study can be accessed here and cited as follows:
Dick, C.T., R.D. Walthall, M.E. Iden, and J.R. Blaze. 2025. Cost and Benefit Risk Framework for Modern Railway Electrification Options. US Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration, Final Report DOT/FRA/ORD-25/01. Washington, DC, USA.
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.
