Pilot for Rail Passenger Cab Cars

TIAX LLC proposes a Phase I SBIR project that will result in a preliminary conceptual design for rail passenger cab car pilots that will reduce the risk for derailment following a grade crossing collision with an automobile. Several tasks are proposed, including: a review of existing pilot designs by contacting car builders and operators; a review of grade crossing accidents; the development of pilot design requirements, including a baseline accident scenario; the generation of pilot design an component concepts; the ranking and evaluation of the concepts, including simplified structural analyses to verify the feasibility of the design by comparing its performance to the baseline scenario performance; and the documentation in layout drawing form of the highest ranked concept. Two bi-monthly interim letter reports and a final report are the deliverables for the Phase I project.