News Archive

Virtual Railway Engineering Short Courses Available

Thursday, February 5th, 2026

You are invited to join us for one or both weeks of RailTEC’s short course this August. Each course will run virtually on Monday – Thursday from noon – 4:00pm (Central) and participants earn 14 professional development hours per week. Past attendees include rail professionals, engineers, planners, consultants and more from employees throughout the rail industry. Participants enrolled in both weeks will receive a $100 discount. For more information and to enroll, click here.

Week One: Track Engineering Fundamentals | 3-6 August 2026

Course Topics: Rail; Crossties & Fasteners; Ballast & Subgrade; Drainage; Slab Track; Turnouts & Special Trackwork; Track Structural Analysis; Track Structural Design; Track Standards & Inspections; Track Maintenance Technologies; Asset Management & Life Cycle Costs
Location: Virtual | Time: Noon-4pm CDT | Instructor: Conrad Ruppert
14 Professional Development Hours

Week Two: Railroad Project Design | 10-13 August 2026

Course Topics: Horizontal Track Geometry; Vertical Track Geometry; Cross Sections & Earthwork; Railroad Location; Location Referencing & Track Charts; Project Phasing; Project Cost Estimation
Location: Virtual | Time: Noon-4pm CDT | Instructor: Conrad Ruppert
14 Professional Development Hours

Since the course focuses on three general topic areas (track structure design, track geometry/project design and train resistance/motive power/rolling stock), attendees who have a stronger background in one area can still learn about other aspects of railway engineering and the interrelationships between them. In gaining a greater appreciation for the holistic view of rail transport as a system, attendees can make better engineering decisions in the future. The short course is an excellent networking opportunity to meet others engaged in various facets of the rail industry.

RailTEC Participation at 2026 TRB

Wednesday, January 21st, 2026

RailTEC made a solid impact again this year at the 105th Annual Transportation Research Board (TRB) meeting in Washington, D.C. on 11-15 January 2026.  In total there were over 43 separate references of RailTEC faculty, staff, students, and alumni in the rail sections. These references included 30 authors, 10 Committee Members, 2 session chairs, and 1 committee meeting chair. Click here for a guide to 2026 RailTEC contributions at TRB.

One highlight of the conference was the presentation of the 2025 Robert E. Skinner, Jr. Distinguished Transportation Research Management Award to Professor Christopher P.L. Barkan, George Krambles Director of RailTEC at the Chair’s Plenary Session on Wednesday. Dr. Barkan was recognized for his nearly four decades-long career advancing research, safety, and operational capacity in the nation’s rail transportation industry. He is the fourth winner of this notable award. Click here to read TRB’s announcement. The Skinner Award was established by the TRB Executive Committee to recognize outstanding lifetime achievement in management, administration, promotion, fostering, and implementation of transportation research.

TRB is the principal annual gathering of the North American transportation research community that typically attracts thousands of transportation professionals from around the world and the meeting program covers all transportation modes. There are hundreds of workshops, lectern sessions, committee sessions, and poster sessions addressing topics of interest to policy makers, administrators, practitioners, researchers, and representatives of government, industry, and academic institutions. Convened by TRB, the 2027 TRB Annual Meeting will be held January 10-14, 2027 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and Marriott Marquis in Washington, D.C.

RailTEC Student Spotlight – Xinhao Liu

Tuesday, December 16th, 2025
Xinhao at the International Heavy Haul Association Conference in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in August 2023.

When Xinhao Liu first joined the RailTEC program at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign six years ago, he had little knowledge of railroad operations but had a desire to solve real-world issues. Now well on his way to earning a PhD, Liu plans to write his dissertation paper on Longer Train Derailment Risk Analysis. “My life after joining RailTEC has been a different life,” he said. “It’s the reason I stayed here for my master’s and PhD.”

As a high school student in Xi’an Shaanxi, China, Liu initially was interested in environmental science and knew Illinois had a good environmental science program. “UIUC was my dream school,” he said. But after arriving on campus in 2017 and taking an introduction to environmental engineering class, Liu discovered he was interested in a major that involved more math and science rather than chemistry, so he transferred to civil engineering.

In one of his civil engineering classes – Engineering Economics – the final project entailed designing a parking lot that would allow people to enter and depart the State Farm Center in 15 minutes. That’s when Liu had an a-ha moment. “I recognized my interest as a transportation issue, not an environmental issue,” he said.

During spring semester 2019 as an undergraduate sophomore, Liu attended an engineering research fair and learned about RailTEC.  “I became interested in rail safety because I can use the majority of my skills in math and statistics,” he said. “I can learn about railroads and real-world problems and use my statistics and programming skills to solve real-world problems.”

Liu joined the RailTEC program in March 2019 and has been an active participant since. During his junior year as an undergraduate he worked on a tank car placement research project. “It was a huge advantage to join as an underclassman,” he said. “It helped me develop research and soft skills, such as how to communicate, and provided me with leadership opportunities.”

Dr. Chen-Yu Lin, National Yang Ming Chiao Tung University, Taiwan, (left) and Xinhao Liu (right)

Liu praised Professors Chris Barkan and Chen-Yu Lin for their teaching style which encourages students to discover a problem and find the solution using resources and data sources. “It teaches proactive learning; it is research which is not like solving a homework problem,” Liu said. “They are my mentors. They have been very helpful and given me personal development help.”

Liu still remembers an assignment he tackled as an undergraduate junior. “They (Barkan and Lin) gave me a task – a published academic paper – and asked me to replicate the paper. The paper presented a model, and they asked me to understand the model and build a tool using that model for their internal use,” he recalled. “Back then, I had very little programming knowledge, and I spent all winter break understanding the model and creating it,” he said. “It was a big challenge. I had to understand the technical paper, learn how to program in Excel VBA and build a replica of the result.”

Liu started pursuing a PhD in civil engineering in the fall of 2023 after earning a master’s degree in civil engineering in May 2023 and a master’s degree in applied statistics in May 2024. He graduated in 2021 with two bachelor’s degrees in economics and in civil engineering. Since 2021, Liu has been learning AI tools and continues to hone his skills and field knowledge to apply to the rail industry.

“This is what I’ve been trying to do since joining RailTEC – solve transportation issues using analytical skills,” he said. “Railroads are a delicate system, and people in railroad academia from different backgrounds are all working toward making railroads better. There is a lot of railroad data coming in, but we have to develop the techniques so industry can use it,” he said.

When Liu receives his PhD, he does not plan to work in academia. “I want to work in the industry,” he said. “I want to be a data scientist in the transportation engineering field.”

RailTEC at IHHA/WCRR 2025

Monday, December 1st, 2025
A large contingent of faculty, staff, students and alumni represented RailTEC at Rail Research Week on 17-21 November 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. This event was a joint conference for the 13th International Heavy Haul Association Conference (IHHA 2025) as they teamed up with the 14th World Congress on Railway Research (WCRR 2025). This collaboration brought together leading minds in freight and passenger rail from around the world, tackling the pressing challenges facing the rail industry today and in the future.

 

The theme of the week was “Inspiring innovative and resilient railways.”  RailTEC’s seven student presentations and five faculty/staff presentations were part of the 700 individual peer-reviewed sessions and papers at the joint conference. Over 35 presentations and session chairs mentioned in the program were associated with RailTEC. The next IHHA conference will be in 2027 in Australia and the next WCRR conference will be in 2028 in Poland.
RailTEC faculty, staff, students and alumni at the IHHA/WCRR joint conference in Colorado in November 2025.
Faculty, staff and student presentations were:

 

WCRR

 

In the Track Buckling conference track:

 

Effect of Fixed Structures: Analytical Modeling and a Pilot Field Study
Kamyar Kosarneshan

 

In the Derailment Risk, Mitigation & Detection conference track:

 

Statistical Modeling of Longer Train Derailment Rates
Xinhao Liu

 

In the Vehicle/Track Interaction Modelling & Testing conference track:

 

Dynamic Interaction Simulation Between Wheel and Turnout Frog Using Revenue Service Railroad Wheel Profiles
Jaeik Lee

 

In the Operational Safety conference track:

 

Use of LIDAR to Develop Comprehensive Detailed Information on the Physical and Geometric Characteristics of Level Crossings and Their Relationship to Incident Occurrence
Francesco Jacobini

 

IHHA

 

In the Track/Inspection conference track:

 

Field Experimentation Quantifying Rail Creep in a Steep-Grade Curve
Jose Gustavo Ramos

 

In the Rail Operations conference track:

 

Analysis of Distributed Power, Train Length, and Derailment Rate
Xinhao Liu

 

In the Heavy Haul Under Extreme Conditions conference track:

 

Impact of Sub-Freezing Conditions on Ballast Strength: A Laboratory Study
Coleman Froehlke

 

In the Track/Turnouts conference track:

 

Railroad Turnout Elasticity Optimization Using Revenue Service Wheel Profiles
Jaeik Lee

 

In the Track/Sleepers & Fasteners conference track:

 

Comparative Evaluation of Under Tie Pads on Railroad Track Maintenance
Arthur de Oliveira Lima

 

In the Track/CWR conference track:

 

Development of Method for Track Buckle Hotspot Identification Using Geometry and Laser Based Data
J. Riley Edwards

 

In the IHHA ePoster Session:

 

Effects of Fixed Structures: Analytical Modeling and a Pilot Field Study
Kamyar Kosarneshan

 

In the Vehicle Track Systems conference track:

 

Cross-Correlation Based Railway Change Detection: A Novel Approach
J. Riley Edwards

That’s a Wrap – RREC and S&R Day

Thursday, November 20th, 2025

The Railroad Environmental Conference (RREC), held on 11-12 November at the I-Hotel and Illinois Conference Center on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus, celebrated its 27th year with a high-quality program. The 2025 conference had 402 registrants who had the opportunity to hear over 50 different spoken and poster presentations given by railroad managers, environmental engineers and researchers from all over North America. Rounding out the event were 48 exhibitors and 31 sponsors. If you missed this year’s conference, please join us on 28-29 October 2026 for the 28th RREC.

The conference keynote address this year was given by Glen Wilson, Environment & Regulatory Vice President, Safety at CPKC. Jo Strang, Senior Vice President Safety, Regulatory and Environmental Policy with the American Short Line and Regional Railroad Association (ASLRRA), was the AREMA Committee 13 banquet keynote speaker.

Each year at RREC the Association of American Railroads (AAR) honors railroaders for their commitment to sustainability and advancing the industry’s environmental efforts. These are the highest honors for environmental professionals in the railroad industry. The 2025 AAR Environmental Excellence Award went to Mike Makerov with Union Pacific Railroad. Other nominees this year were Terri Allen (Norfolk Southern), Brian Booth (CSX), and Kari Harris (CN).

Two special awards were also given at the conference this year. Leo Thorbecke (TRC Companies) received Emeritus status for AREMA Committee 13 and Kevin Keller (HDR) was acknowledged with an AAR Career Achievement Award.

In conjunction with RREC, a new Sustainability & Resiliency (S&R) Day was held on 13 November 2025. S&R Day, hosted by AREMA and RailTEC, offered twenty presentations focused on how sustainability and resiliency concepts and best practices can be applied to a broad range of engineering design, maintenance, operations, capital projects, construction, sustainable materials, and organizational change activities. One hundred and eleven registrants participated in this inaugural event and conference feedback was very positive. The S&R keynote speaker was Ed Sparks, Chief Engineer – Bridge Design and Construction with CSX. The title of his address was “CSX Engineering for Resiliency”.

 

RailTEC Student Spotlight – Paige Hardt

Monday, October 20th, 2025
Paige Hardt (L) receiving her CN Research Fellowship in Railroad Engineering from Paula Pienton, Chief Engineer Bridges & Structures with CN Railway.

A railway engineering short course in railroad project design offered through RailTEC at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign motivated Paige Hardt to move to Illinois to pursue a master’s degree. Hardt earned a bachelor’s degree in civil engineering from the University of Wyoming in May 2021 and then worked for three-and-a-half years as a civil engineer at a transportation engineering consulting firm in Kansas City. “I took those years to figure out what I wanted, and it was not necessarily transportation engineering because that’s dealing more with highways,” she said. “After I took the RailTEC short course, I knew I wanted an MS.”

Hardt is the sixth person in her family to become a civil engineer. “Structural or hydraulic engineering is what everyone in my family is in,” she said. Although her mother is a structural engineer, Hardt wasn’t as passionate about that type of civil engineering. An internship working on rail projects helped Hardt to find her true passion.

“In 2020, I was lucky to have an internship, and they stuck me with rail projects,” she said. “I agreed to be hired full-time as long as I was on the rail team. “I designed sidings, and I had a few industry projects, including lowering a BNSF route by 15 feet so the City of Flagstaff could build an overpass,” she said. “I enjoyed the client relations and going onsite to see the location I’m designing,” she said. “While I was doing that, the RailTEC short course was suggested to me as a quick course to gain more knowledge of rail design.”

In 2023, Hardt decided to enroll in classes at Illinois and move to Champaign-Urbana where she is only an hour away from her grandparents. She is pursuing a master’s degree at Illinois in civil engineering with a focus in rail transportation engineering and expects to graduate in December 2025. “I took an untraditional route here, after working in the corporate world, but I had two really good managers that pushed me out of my comfort zone and gave me good opportunities on rail projects,” she said.

Hardt joined the RailTEC program in January 2025 and has started work on the first of two research projects: Longitudinal Rail Displacement Near Fixed Structures with Senior Principal Research Engineer Marcus Dersch. “I am taking measurements of rail movement at different distances from a fixed structure and then taking the differential distances and using that to understand rail temperature,” she explained. The other research project Hardt will work on is Non-linearity of Track Degradation in Relation to Maintenance Events with Assistant Professor Riley Edwards and Senior Research Engineer Arthur Lima.

Her time with the RailTEC program has been a positive experience. “Riley and the students have been very supportive, and I enjoy the collaboration,” she said. “They give me critical feedback, and it’s encouraged me to dig into the research more.”

Are You Registered?

Friday, October 10th, 2025

Registration is open and the preliminary program is now available for the 27th annual Railroad Environmental Conference (RREC) which will be held on 11-12 November 2025 at the I-Hotel and Illinois Conference Center on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. In conjunction with RREC, a new Sustainability & Resiliency (S&R) Day will be held the day after on 13 November 2025. S&R Day, hosted by the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) and RailTEC, will focus on how sustainability and resiliency concepts and best practices can be applied to a broad range of engineering design, maintenance, operations, capital projects, construction, sustainable materials, organizational change activities, etc.

Online registration is open until October 31 for both conferences.

Over 50 presentations are expected at RREC by railroad managers, environmental engineers and researchers from all over North America.  RREC enables rail industry employees to meet with peers throughout the railroad environmental community to exchange views, learn about new techniques and technologies, and generally stay in touch with the direction of the railroad industry’s environmental programs.

 

Barkan Receives Prestigious Skinner Award

Tuesday, October 7th, 2025

 

 

RailTEC is proud to announce that Professor Christopher P.L. Barkan, George Krambles Director, is the recipient of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) 2025 Robert E. Skinner, Jr. Distinguished Transportation Research Management Award. Dr. Barkan is recognized for his nearly four decades-long career advancing research, safety, and operational capacity in the nation’s rail transportation industry. He is the fourth winner of this notable award. Click here to read Dr. Barkan’s award citation.

The award will be presented on Wednesday, 14 January 2026, during the Chair’s Plenary Session of the TRB Annual Meeting, 11-15 January 2026, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

The Skinner Award was established by the TRB Executive Committee to recognize outstanding lifetime achievement in management, administration, promotion, fostering, and implementation of transportation research. It honors Robert E. Skinner, Jr. who served TRB for more than 30 years, including 21 years as its executive director from 1994 to 2015. Award recipients are chosen by a selection committee consisting of the Chair and Vice Chair of the TRB Executive Committee, Chair of the Executive Committee’s Subcommittee on Planning and Policy Review, Chair of the TRB Division Committee, and the Executive Director of TRB. For more information about the Skinner Award, click here to read the award’s information page on the TRB website.

 

Instructor Ranked Excellent

Friday, October 3rd, 2025

Congratulations to Professor J. Riley Edwards for being named to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Spring 2025 list of  “Teachers Ranked as Excellent by Their Students”. These lists are compiled by the University on a semester basis and reflect student ratings of instruction. The ratings are based on Instructor and Course Evaluation (ICES) questionnaire forms and are maintained by Measurement and Evaluation in the Center for Innovation in Teaching & Learning on campus.

Riley taught CEE 411 | Railroad Project Design and Construction. This course focused on five elements of a railroad project: Economic Analysis, Planning, Design, Construction, and Operation. Students worked in teams to identify, gather and analyze the necessary information, to plan and manage a new railroad construction project. The class included a field trip to observe and participate in railroad track maintenance and construction activities, and visited a major railroad construction project. CEE 411 is typically offered in the classroom or online in the spring semester.

AREMA 2025 conference

Friday, September 26th, 2025

Approximately 25 RailTEC students and faculty attended the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) 2025 Annual Conference & Expo on 14-17 September at the Indianapolis Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN.  Many RailTEC alumni were also in attendance and played a key role in the schedule.

RailTEC attendees at the 2025 AREMA Conference

Presentations by current RailTEC faculty, staff and students this year were:

  • Identifying Frozen Ballast and the Impact it has on Rail Gaps – A Laboratory and Numerical Study
    Coleman Froehlke & Marcus Dersch, University of Illinois Urbana Champaign
  • Turnout Frog Profile Optimization Through Dynamic Interaction Modeling with Revenue Service Wheel Profiles
    Jaeik Lee, PhD, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

In addition to attending technical presentations and sessions designed specifically for student participants, RailTEC students created two teams of five to battle in the AREMA Committee 24 Collegiate Quiz Bowl Competition. The first team consisted of Alex Roskov, Jose Gustavo V. S. Ramos, Derek Campbell, Kaifeng Hu, and Ryan Loscalzo. This team came from behind after three rounds to beat Penn State Team A by one point. The second team, consisting of Coleman Froehlke, Cayden Schroeder, Sam Eberle, Drew Hohe, and Batu Alp, tied for third place with Penn State Team B. RailTEC also took first place in last year’s Student Quiz Bowl in Louisville.

This year the Dr. William W. Hay Award for Excellence was given to Brightline Florida and HNTB Corp. for their 38-mile East-West Connector Project in Central Florida. This was the last piece of Brightline’s passenger-rail line between Orlando and Miami and riders now can travel from the Orlando International Airport to Miami in three hours and 25 minutes. The project, which included 20 grade separations, involved more than 700 workers including multiple RailTEC alumni.