BOSTON — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has awarded Advanced Rail Management Corp. a four-year contract for optical rail measurement services. The contract also includes two option years.
ARM will collect data on 173 track mile annually, with semi-annual testing of the light rail Green Line and annual testing of the rapid transit Red, Orange, and Blue lines. Data will include collection of rail profile, vertical, gauge-face and combined wear, percange of head loss, gauge and field lip, track guage, crosslevel, cant angle and gauge-face angle data. It will be captured at 6-inch intervals on the Green Line and 12-inch intervals on the rapid-transit lines, the tightest data-collection-interval requirements in North America.
Data collection will require dealing with grades of up to 7% and double-restrained, 75-foot-radius curives. It will also require precise gauge-face angle data on the Green Line, which receives the additional scrutiny and more frequent testing because its cars have just ¾-inch wheel flanges.
“We developed a custom algorithm to more precisely capture gauge-face angle measurements,” ARM President Gordon Bachinsky said in a press release. “This allows the MBTA to monitor change to the gauge-face angle between measurements and to develop wear trends over time.”
Congratulations to Gordon + ARM! MBTA is in good hands.