United States Department of Transportation
i
Heavy Axle Load Revenue Service Rail Performance: Tehachapi, CA [Research Results]
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2007-05-01
[PDF-545.07 KB]
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Abstract:The Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) in Pueblo, CO, performed rail performance tests in revenue track in cooperation with Union Pacific Railroad (UP). Figure 1 shows an in-revenue rail performance test at Site 3, Milepost (MP) 340 at Tehachapi, CA. These tests suggest that new versions of premium rails have an average expected life of 200 million gross tons (MGT), based on a 0.75-inch gage face wear limit, or approximately 900 MGT life using a 30 percent head area loss criteria. For 2 curves where exact MGT was known, expected rail life using a 0.75-inch gage wear limit ranged from 232 to 245 MGT. The environment included severe mountain grade and curvatures of 6 to 10 degrees. In the 169 MGT of the monitoring period, there was less than a 10 percent variation in predicted rail life between the rails evaluated. During this same period, no rail grinding was performed, and no rail surface deterioration was noted. Similar rails tested at the Facility for Accelerated Service Testing (FAST) had approximately double the expected life, suggesting that train and lubrication conditions in the field were different and more severe. No strong correlation between rail hardness and ranking of wear rates was observed.
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