by Brad Kerchof This article originally appeared in the September 2025 issue of Railway Track and Structures. It is reprinted here at their courtesy. Do you have experience arguing about derailment causes with another department? If so, chances are you have negotiated the cause of a switch-point wheel-climb derailment. The …
by Jeff Tuzik On passenger rail systems, disruption is never good. With tight headways and packed cars, a small disruption of service doesn’t stay small for long. Major disruptions, such as those that require taking a track out of service for repair, are worse yet. On São Paulo’s Metropolitan Train …
by Jeff Tuzik Rail grinding is typically the go-to approach to addressing rail-related issues like corrugation, RCF, profile degradation, and a slew of others. It works. And on transit (and other closed-loop) systems, rail grinding can also be used to address wheel-related issues, as well. Greater Cleveland Rail Transit Authority’s …
by Jeff Tuzik A well optimized wheel/rail interface is a quiet wheel/rail interface. In the rail transit environment, there are many technologies and strategies to reduce wheel/rail-generated noise, and they tend to focus on reducing rail roughness. Standard rail grinding, acoustic rail grinding, rail milling, and specialized acoustic grinding machines …
by Jeff Tuzik Some information in this article has been updated since the original publication date. Internal rail flaws and defects are an unfortunate but unavoidable part of railroading. All railroads have them. All railroads have to repair them. Defect remediation, which involves cutting out the affected rail and replacing …
by Jeff Tuzik In the railroad industry, friction management takes many forms. Managing friction through the application of lubrication and friction modifier products is a key component of maintaining an optimized wheel/rail interface. North American railroads typically use some combination of gage-face lubrication and top-of-rail (TOR) friction modifiers on various …
by Jeff Tuzik Track geometry inspection has always been an intrinsic part of railroading. That hasn’t changed and never will. But the way inspections are performed and the data they yield is changing rapidly. Automation is one of the biggest factors in the change, but the sophistication of inspection technologies …
by Jeff Tuzik Squats and studs (squat-type defects) are a topic of discussion and debate in the world of wheel/rail interaction. Their similarity in appearance leads many experienced track people to misidentify them, and the urgency with which they need to be addressed. As previously reported in Squats & Studs: Emergent …
by Jeff Tuzik Wheel Rail Seminars named Mike Roney, Principal of Iron Mustache Consulting, and retired General Manager, Track and Structures and Chief Engineer with Canadian Pacific, the recipient of the 2025 Worth Award. The award, presented at the annual Wheel/Rail Interaction Heavy Haul conference, is named for Art Worth, the …
by Jeff Tuzik Derailments have many causes. Some are fairly simple and straightforward, others involve a complex combination of factors and circumstances. Determining the root causes is what keeps derailment investigators busy, and what helps railroads avoid such derailments in the future. Over the years, and over the course of …