This paper describes the planning of the 'first' experiment, that is, the first several months of operation of the Facility for Accelerated Service Testing, built at the Department of Transportation's Test Center in Pueblo, Colorado. The Facility for Accelerated Service Testing is a 4.8-mile track loop over which a 9500-ton train operates for up to 16 hr per day. By performing this operation, the track is subjected to a million gross tons per day and the vehicles travel up to 640 miles per day. Three hundred days of operation per year will subject the track to 300,000,000 gross tons and the vehicles traverse approximately 200,000 miled. This represents a tenfold increase in the amount of traffic to which the track is subjected and the amount of mileage the vehicles travel over normal revenue service. The track, consisting of 22 different track test sections and mechanical tests in 13 component areas, enables evaluation of various track constructions and mechanical equipment ten times sooner than would have been possible in actual revenue service.
Planning the facility for accelerated service testing
Verkuerzte Dauererprobung von rollendem Eisenbahnmaterial
ASME-Papers ; 1-11
1977
11 Seiten, 11 Bilder, 5 Tabellen
Conference paper
English