Testing of rail vehicles for higher speeds on existing lines

The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA), together with its industry and state government partners, has tested several types of passenger rail equipment to evaluate the safety aspects of operating these vehicles at higher speeds on existing lines. The FRA´s approach to safety at these regimes has been to consider the equipment and the track as an integrated system; neither the track nor the equipment can be considered in isolation. When a vehicle´s characteristics are known through analysis and experience, assessment of its safety at high cant deficiency on a given track can be conducted with a portable system comprised of two accelerometers and a global positioning system. The portable system is typically placed on the vehicle´s floor where it measures carbody accelerations, vehicle speed, and track location. Recorded data are then compared with the safety criteria established for each vehicle, speed and track condition. This paper describes the safety assessment procedure and the results of some recent tests including those of the Spanish Talgo coach and Amtrak´s F-40PH locomotive