Email 50th Anniversary.pdf

Alvarenga, Brittany (FRA)

From: Message from the FRA Deputy Administrator Sent: Wednesday, May 19, 2021 10:01 AM Subject: FRA's Transportation Technology Center Reaches 50th Anniversary

Dear Colleagues, Step back in time to 1971. It’s the year Amtrak was launched. The first lunar roving vehicle explored the moon. Mariner 9 became the first spacecraft to successfully enter Mars orbit. And on May 19, 1971, another transportation milestone happened in a remote Colorado site about 25 miles northeast of Pueblo. There, former Secretary of Transportation John Volpe dedicated the High Speed Ground Test Center, now known as FRA’s Transportation Technology Center.

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the Center’s dedication. It’s a good time to celebrate how this 30,000‐acre testing, proving, and training ground has significantly advanced rail safety, efficiency, and innovations.

The Center was initially designed to support test projects of the FRA and the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (now the Federal Transit Administration). Over the years, the scope and size and partnerships of the Center have grown.

Today, the TTC campus includes 12 major buildings, which house offices, laboratories, maintenance shops, and full‐scale training facilities. The site has nearly 50 miles of railroad track to test locomotives, vehicles, track components, signaling devices, and more. If you have visited, you already know the Center’s vast resources for innovative research, development, testing, and training. If you haven’t visited, click here for a video tour of this remarkable facility.

From the very beginning, research and testing at the Center have led to breakthroughs in transportation technology. In 1974, the Linear Induction Motor Research Vehicle set a world speed record for steel‐wheel‐on‐rail vehicles traveling 255 mph. During the past 50 years, tests have been conducted on the crashworthiness of various train materials, from window glass to the materials used in dining car tables. An Impact Facility designed specifically for crash‐testing has determined rail car crashworthiness and crash energy management. The first and the most recent Amtrak Acela trainsets, Positive Train Control systems, Automated Track Inspection Technology, and safer tank car designs have all been tested here in recent years. Collectively, these proving grounds have accelerated the adoption of beneficial new technologies that make today’s rail travel more efficient and safer than ever.

If you’re an inspector in any of the six safety disciplines, chances are you’ve attended TTC for hands‐on instruction using equipment and accident scenarios at the Center that replicate what you deal with in your daily work. In addition, The Security and Emergency Response Training Center (SERTC) has been training private and public emergency responders at the TTC since 1985.

I hope you share my pride in all that the TTC has accomplished in its first 50 years and my enthusiasm for all that lies ahead as we enter the next 50 years. For more details, please read a FRANet feature story about the TTC's 50th anniversary and a news release posted to the FRA Newsroom.

FRA Deputy Administrator Amit Bose