CHAMPAIGN — Using funds from a $3.5 million U.S. Department of Transportation grant, a seven-university consortium led by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign recently established the National University Rail Center (NURail Center) that will focus on railroad education and research to improve railroad safety, efficiency and reliability.

Along with the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the University of Illinois at Chicago, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Michigan Technical University, Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, University of Kentucky, and University of Tennessee are also included in the NURail Center consortium.
The NURail Center is one of several University Transportation Centers financed through the USDOT.
“It is a program that USDOT has had for several decades called the University of Transportation Program,” said NURail Center Director Christopher Barkan, who has been a part of the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana railroad engineering program for the past 14 years. “The program has always been highway and to a less extent, airway-oriented, and had little, if any, focus on rail transport.
“Last summer, the USDOT announced they were going to completely reorganize the program. The USDOT decided the new program would be multi-mobile, meaning all surface transportation modes were liable candidates for study for the University Transportation Center Program. So we formed a coalition and developed a proposal. It was specifically focused on rail transportation in the United States, both freight and passenger.”
Out of 46 grant proposals, the NURail Center consortium was one of 10 consortiums to receive USDOT grants for the establishment of Tier 1 University Transportation Centers in 2012.
“This is the first time in the history of the program there has been a rail-focused center,” said Barkan.
The central theme of NURail Center’s proposal for the University Transportation Center grant focused on addressing engineering, operational and safety questions related to the operation of both freight and passenger trains on the same infrastructure or on nearby infrastructures.
“We’re going to have to improve our passenger service using or at least partly using freight infrastructure, but at the same time we do that it’s extremely important not to harm the operations of the freight trains on those lines because freight trains offer a very energy-efficient, economical-efficient transport,” said Barkan. “It’s (freight service) good for our economy. It’s good for our environment. It’s a very safe transport, so it’s good for public safety as well. And so it’s very important that we figure out how we’re going to add passenger trains to lines that already have freight services, without harming the freight service.”
Headquartered within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, the NURail Center will develop classes and teaching materials for railroad engineering programs at universities and colleges in the United States.
“We’re going to be developing classes and teaching classes, and also developing materials for other colleges and universities to use because part of our mission it to not only enhance our own educational programs in rail transport, but also support the efforts of other colleges and universities who want to do the same thing,” said Barkan.
NURail Center will also conduct research projects that will focus on track and structures; train control; rolling stock; human factors; and other topics identified based on Federal Railroad Administration and Association of American Railroad properties.
The research conducted at the NURail Center is expected to contribute to the development of the Illinois High-Speed and Intercity Passenger Rail Corridor, said Barkan.