United States Department of Transportation
i
Improving Collision Post Crashworthiness of Legacy Locomotives
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2019-10-01
[PDF-6.27 MB]
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Edition:Technical Report April 2, 2015 to December 31, 2017
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Abstract:Modern locomotives are built to crashworthiness standards defined in Subpart D of Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 229 as well as the Association of American Railroads’(AAR) S-580 standards. Older locomotives, specifically the narrow-nose locomotives, were not designed to these crashworthiness standards and lack the crew protection offered by modern locomotives in case of train collisions. While these older locomotives have generally been relegated to non-lead locomotive service on several Class I railroads, it is not uncommon to see these units in mainline service. Though the number of these locomotives is decreasing, the fleet evolution trend for the next 13 years shows that a significant number of them will remain in service for the foreseeable future. Therefore, there remains a risk of injuries and fatalities for the crew. This report analyzes the historical locomotive fleet evolution and accident data to estimate the residual risk of injuries and fatalities over the next 13 years from the legacy locomotives in service. Further, a typical legacy narrow-nose locomotive hood structure is analyzed to understand its behavior under the S-580 requirements. This analysis has led to the development of multiple concepts of collision post design for retrofit within the existing short hood space to provide crashworthiness protection which meets and exceeds the 2001 S-580 requirements. The proposed designs are amenable to a retrofit with no impact on locomotive functionalities, bringing the legacy locomotives in compliance with crashworthiness requirements and minimizing the injury and fatality risk to the crew in a collision.
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