This thesis explores narrow category of railroad universal maintenance vehicles, or draisines. It focuses specifically on the long tradition of czech models. The goal of the work is to take this analysis, and use this knowledge to synthesise a new draisine design, which will bring a set of specific advantages, especially from the point of aesthetics and user comfort.

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Includes inset of Covington, Newport and vicinity. Includes hand-colored counties and handwritten note of C-1890 along with indications of railroad lines. Scale 1 in = 25 miles. / https://dc.etsu.edu/rare-maps/1155/thumbnail.jpg

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No description available.

Railroad is one of the primary modes for transporting hazardous materials (hazmat). Given the dangerous nature of the hazmat, risk mitigation in the railroad transportation is the need of the hour. Hence, we explore the idea of equitable distribution of risk in the railroad network. We propose the subsidy policy to be considered by government to induce favourable routings of the hazmat shipments. The government's objective is to achieve risk equity in the network, whereas, the carrier's cost effective approach leads to increased risk in low-cost service-legs. To model this, we formulate the problem as a bi-level mixed integer program. We derive the single level mixed integer linear program (MILP) and test it on the rail infrastructure in midwest United States using state-of-the-art solver CPLEX 12.8.0. The instances with upto 25 shipments on the network are solved efficiently on a local machine. We use high performance computing resource available at Graham cluster of Compute Canada facility to solve the large instances with 50 shipments on the network. We show the effectiveness of the subsidy policy as a risk mitigation tool for the railroad hazmat transportation, and review the efficiency of the solution methodology to solve the MILP for the network. Moreover, the results demonstrate the economic feasibility for the government to allocate the budget for the subsidy. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

Rail and truck freight transportation systems provide vital logistics services today. Rail systems are generally used to transport heavy and bulky commodities over long distances, while trucks tend to provide fast and flexible service for small and high-value products. In this dissertation, we study two different distribution planning problems that arise in rail and truck transportation systems. In the railroad industry, shipments are often grouped together to form a block to reduce the impact of reclassification at train yards. We consider the time and capacity constrained routing (TCCR) problem, which assigns shipments to blocks and train-runs to minimize overall transportation costs, while considering the train capacities and shipment due dates. Two mathematical formulations are developed, including an arc-based formulation and a path-based formulation. To solve the problem efficiently, two solution approaches are proposed. The sequential algorithm assigns shipments in order of priority while considering the remaining train capacities and due dates. The bump-shipment algorithm initially schedules shipments simultaneously and then reschedules the shipments that exceed the train capacity. The algorithms are evaluated using a data set from a major U.S. railroad with approximately 500,000 shipments. Industry-sized problems are solved within a few minutes of computational time by both the sequential and bump-shipment algorithms, and transportation costs are reduced by 6% compared to the currently used trip plans. For truck transportation systems, trailer fleet planning (TFP) is an important issue to improve services and reduce costs. In this problem, we consider the quantities and types of trailers to purchase, rent, or relocate among depots to meet time varying demands. Mixed-integer programming models are developed for both homogeneous and heterogeneous TFP problems. The objective is to minimize the total fleet investment costs and the distribution costs across multiple depots and multiple time periods. For homogeneous TFP problem, a two-phase solution approach is proposed. Phase I concentrates on distribution costs and determines the suggested fleet size. A sweep-based routing heuristic is applied to generate candidate routes of good quality. Then a reduced mathematical model selects routes for meeting customer demands and determines the preferred fleet size. Phase II provides trailer purchase, relocation, and rental decisions based on the results of Phase I and relevant cost information. This decomposition approach removes the interactions between depots and periods, which greatly reduces the complexity of the integrated optimization model. For the heterogeneous TFP problem, trailers with different capacities, costs, and features are considered. The two-phase approach, developed for the homogeneous TFP, is modified. A rolling horizon scheme is applied in Phase I to consider the trailer allocations in previous periods when determining the fleet composition for the current period. Additionally, the sweep-based routing heuristic is also extended to capture the characteristics of continuous delivery practice where trailers are allowed to refill products at satellite facilities. This heuristic generates routes for each trailer type so that the customer-trailer restrictions are accommodated. The numerical studies, conducted using a data set with three depots and more than 400 customers, demonstrate the effectiveness of the two-phase approaches. Compared to the integrated optimization models, the two-phase approaches obtain quality solutions within a reasonable computational time and demonstrate robust performance as the problem sizes increase. Based on these results, a leading industrial gas provider is currently integrating the proposed solution approaches as part of their worldwide distribution planning software. / Ph. D.

The task of railroad inspection is a tedious one. It requires a lot of skilled experts and long hours of frequent on-field inspection. Automated ground equipment systems that have been developed to address this problem have the drawback of blocking the rail service during inspection process. As an alternative, using aerial imagery from a UAV, Computer Vision and Machine Learning based techniques were developed in this thesis to analyze two kinds of defects on the rail tracks. The defects targeted were missing spikes on tie plates and cracks on ties. In order to perform this inspection, the rail region was identified in the image and then the tie plate and tie regions on the track were detected. These steps were performed using morphological operations, filtering and intensity analysis. Once the tie plate was localized, the regions of interest on the plate were used to train a machine learning model to recognize missing spikes. Classification using SVM resulted in an accuracy of around 96% and varied greatly based on the tie plate illumination and ROI alignment for Lampasas and Chickasha subdivision datasets. Also, many other different classifiers were used for training and testing and an ensemble method with majority vote scheme was also explored for classification. The second category of learning model used was a multi-layered neural network. The major drawback of this method was, it required a lot of images for training. However, it performed better than feature based classifiers with availability of larger training dataset. As a second kind of defect, tie conditions were analyzed. From the localized tie region, the tie cracks were detected using thresholding and morphological operations. A machine learning classifier was developed to predict the condition of a tie based on training examples of images with extracted features. The multi-class classification accuracy obtained was around 83% and there were no misclassifications seen between two extreme classes of tie condition on the test data. / Master of Science

Finite element models of four design configurations of a proposed composite aluminum-steel high-side coal gondola rail car were developed. The designs were analyzed for compliance with the loadings set forth by the Association of American Railroads. Each of the first three designs were analyzed to check design concepts and alternatives with the fourth design being the final design planned for a prototype car. The results of the finite element analyses indicate that the final design is acceptable. However, two areas exist where results taken literally indicate a negative margin of safety. These areas are in the end sill to draftsill connection and in the draftsill casting. These conditions appear to be inconsequential since in the end sill case, the high stress is apparently caused by modeling constraints and the draftsill casting is a traditional design and is in common use on current cars and therefore should not cause any service problems. Step-by-step application of the finite element method to this design process is presented along with discussion of some significant element formulation assumptions and modeling methods. / Master of Science

In this thesis, a computer program for graphically displaying finite element beam stresses is discussed. Beam elements are represented as thick lines with colored stress contours along the length. Stress gradients through the beam thickness are not displayed. Many program options are available to aid in creating a clear view of stress distributions in complex models. The front, right, top, and isometric views are preprogrammed views, or a rotated view of the model can be specified. Also, specific portions of the model can be magnified. A region may be defined for showing cut sections of the model. Contour options are available to help enhance stress representation. Node locations may be marked, and beam line widths modified. Finally, any view that has been developed can be saved in a file to be redisplayed at a later time. The program also has the capability of displaying resultant beam forces and moments. Beam stress displays for two train car models are used to demonstrate the usefulness of the program as both a presentation and modeling diagnostic tool. Stress gradients and high-stress regions are easily seen. With these displays some model discrepancies were uncovered and some highly stressed locations were observed that had not been discovered in the prior research. / Master of Science