Railway Interchange 2025 -Indianapolis USA

Railway Interchange 2025 exhibition held at Indianapolis convention centre (20-22 May). It was a unique experience to see some of the American railroad technology on display, and where applicable discuss potential collaboration opportunities with Intellex Consulting Services. There were many interesting Exhibitors, but our main focus and discussions were with Princeton consultants, Michigan State University – Centre for Railway Research, Hitachi Rail, Siemens Mobility, Modern Railway Systems, Drayton Brown Inc, KB signalling, VisoStack Inc.
We Had a discussion with North American Railway Systems on Positive Train Control (Train protection technology for US freight trains). Though PTC has functional similarities with ETCS but subsystems are named as back office, onboard, wayside and communications systems and has some differences with ETCS.
attended a short presentation, organised by Railcar Technical Services Association (RTSA), on Reliability Practices in the Rail Industry by Mr Pete White of Greenbrier Companies. I was pleased to see that RAM is made a priority by the American Rail Regulators. Life Data Analysis (LDA) is carried out which is the equivalent of the RAM analysis in accordance with EN50126.
LDA can be performed using ReliaSoft software which was shown during the presentation. LDA is a reliability prediction performed against the time for the system under consideration. LDA also shows the maintenance intervals required when the prediction falls below the reliability targets.
There are some innovative AI tools which process infrastructure images used for condition monitoring. It was very interesting to see live monitoring of wheel bearing temperature, wheel flats and other condition monitoring parameters of the various Hitachi trains being operated in UK.
Michigan State University – Centre for Railway Research showed an interest in Intellex’s RAMS training programmes. In addition, there are potential collaboration opportunities with US companies for transfer of technologies to UK, UAE and India, which Intellex could develop in the future. Overall, it was a great experience increasing Intellex’s knowledge base and professional network.