GPS Installation on Federal Railroad Track Geometry Vehicle

John Conner II, Bdale Garbee, Carl Fischer

Abstract:	For more than a decade, the US Department of Transportation, Federal Railroad Administration’s Office of Safety has inspected the track of US railroads with the T-10 Track Geometry Vehicle. These inspections help ensure compliance with FRA Track Safety Standards, and provide the railroads with information used to plan track maintenance work. The information, however, provides only relative positions of track features. The FRA Office of Policy is developing a Geographic Information System (GIS) database of track features for the entire US railroad track system. Adding GPS location information to the existing T-10 system would link the track features to a more absolute frame of reference for input to the GIS. A new GPS data collection system was installed on T-IO in November of 1993, and early operational data is now being analyzed. This paper covers the design of the system’s hardware and software, integration of the GPS system with the existing T-10 Track Geometry Measurement System, problems overcome, results collected to date, and plans for future system upgrades.
Published in:	Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994) September 20 - 23, 1994 Salt Palace Convention Center Salt Lake City, UT
Pages:	509 - 518
Cite this article:	Conner, John, II, Garbee, Bdale, Fischer, Carl, "GPS Installation on Federal Railroad Track Geometry Vehicle," Proceedings of the 7th International Technical Meeting of the Satellite Division of The Institute of Navigation (ION GPS 1994), Salt Lake City, UT, September 1994, pp. 509-518.
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