Appendix C - BAA Research Topics_FY26.27.pdf

Federal Railroad Administration Office of Research, Development, and Technology

Broad Agency Announcement — BAA 2026–27

Appendix C — Research Topics

Note: If a division has satisfied its research needs before the BAA end date, we may re-publish this list with one or more topics removed.

TRACK

FRA-TR-001 Improved Rail Weld Technologies

FRA-TR-002 Non-Contact Flaw Detection

FRA-TR-003

Characterization and Risk Assessment of Non-Regulatory, Combined Track Geometry Defects

FRA-TR-004 Special Trackwork Wear Analysis

FRA-TR-005

Innovative Methods for Measuring or Monitoring Longitudinal Rail Stress

FRA-TR-006 Research and Development on Track Lateral Strength

FRA-TR-007

Determining Pre-break Rail Neutral Temperature, Longitudinal Rail Restraint, and Best Rail Adjustment Practices

FRA-TR-008

Scalable Extraction of Railway Infrastructure Geometry, Non-Rail Related Structures, and Human Activity and/or Encroachments on Rail Infrastructure from Remote Sensing Imagery

FRA-TR-009 Wheel/Rail Contact Evaluation

FRA-TR-010 Concrete/Composite Tie Technology Advancements

ROLLING STOCK AND EQUIPMENT

FRA-RS-001 Improving the Safety of Hazardous Materials Transportation

TRAIN CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION

FRA-TC-001 Train Movement Communications System

FRA-TC-002 Verification of Position Navigation Module Performance

FRA-TC-003 Maintenance-of-Way (MoW) Employee and Rail Vehicle Safety Systems

FRA-TC-004 Enhancing Rail Safety Integrity Against Quantum-Era Exploitation and Automated Threats

Track

Topic: FRA-TR-001

Title: Improved Rail Weld Technologies

Description

FRA is interested in new welding methods or treatments that aim to improve the wear resistance, ductility, and fatigue life properties of in-track and plant welds.

FRA wants to explore:

● Thermite welds that more closely match the parent rail steel metallurgy.

● Electric flash butt welds that have an improved weld interface to eliminate the concave/convex defects seen in Class I tracks. Alternative in-track or plant rail welding pre- or post-weld treatments to improve weld properties.

● New in-track rail welding methods

FRA will not consider projects requiring large initial investments to develop and build new equipment. Offerors needing substantial capital investment for equipment should instead explore potential funding from FRA’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvement (CRISI) grant program. Offerors must have extensive experience in the proposed research area, have a clear path forward that results in in-track testing, and demonstrate knowledge of the technical challenges encountered in past efforts of improved welding methods and technology.

Topic: FRA-TR-002

Title: Non-Contact Flaw Detection

Description

This topic seeks rail and weld flaw inspection systems that improve flaw detection accuracy, increase test speed, and reduce false positive rates with improved data processing. Systems that are autonomous, non-contact, and operate at track speed to permit use on revenue service equipment, including locomotives, are of primary interest. Further, systems should successfully handle worn rail geometry and moderately damaged rail surfaces. Offerors must provide a method to determine the false negative rate for the developed technologies and the associated probability of detection. Offerors must provide written evidence of a partnership agreement with a railroad operator.

Topic: FRA-TR-003

Title: Characterization and Risk Assessment of Non-Regulatory, Combined Track Geometry Defects

Description

Track health can rapidly deteriorate on heavy-haul railway lines, leading to degraded track geometry that adversely affects vehicle performance and poses significant safety and economic https://railroads.dot.gov/grants-loans/consolidated-rail-infrastructure-and-safety-improvements-crisi-program challenges. While individual track geometry defects are well-characterized and have established regulatory safety limits, risks associated with adverse combinations of sub-threshold geometry defects remain insufficiently understood. Specifically, combined defects — where each individual parameter conforms to the limits outlined in FRA's Title 49 Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), Track Safety Standards Part 213 — can result in unsafe track conditions.

FRA seeks the development of an advanced algorithm that addresses the following areas:

• Innovative, analytical approaches to enhance track geometry health assessments and safety standards, including safety-critical, non-regulatory, combined geometry anomalies.

• Combined track geometry safety metrics for track health monitoring.

• The effects of different geographic locations and seasonality on combined geometry degradation.

The algorithm’s development should use measured data and simulation efforts through multibody system simulations (MBS). Offeror submissions must include methodologies for verifying and validating the algorithm’s accuracy. Additionally, offerors should consider track geometry parameters, operating conditions, load conditions, traffic type, and vehicle type in their analyses. FRA prefers that the track geometry data be sourced from two geographically distinct territories in North America, with data collected during both warm and cold seasons for each territory.

To advance the research outlined here, offerors must establish a partnership with a railroad or other railroad industry partner to access the necessary data. Additionally, since the research findings will be publicly disseminated, the research data must also be publicly accessible.

Topic: FRA-TR-004

Title: Special Trackwork Wear Analysis

Description

Railroads use special trackwork, including track crossings, turnouts, and diamonds, throughout their systems. Special trackwork has unique components and comes in a variety of designs, with many unique to their location. Special trackwork derailment data may be found in accident cause codes T301 through T399. FRA is interested in further examining wear and critical failures in special trackwork. Research may examine critical failure methods in spring frog and spring frog components but FRA is open to other types of special trackwork component failure modes. This research may be completed anywhere within a turnout or crossing, switch point region included.

Existing FRA standards governing special trackwork are identified in 49 CFR 213.133–143.

Ideally, further research may include:

● Engineering analysis of critical locations unique to spring frogs; it is understood there are a variety of designs, sizes, and types. Offerors should be prepared to examine frogs and/or diamonds representative of those in revenue-service track and justify their selections. Selection process methodology must be included in the Concept Paper.

● Modeling and/or simulations, in which the Offeror may use an existing platform or software, showing the critical failure/wear locations and values.

● Validation of models/simulations in a field environment may be proposed as future, phased work, but it is not a requirement for this research solicitation.

● Improved inspection methodologies in special trackwork.

● Research outcomes must, at a minimum, include a Technical Report to FRA.

● Offerors must show an established relationship with a railroad and/or railroad entity with experience relating to special trackwork.

Topic: FRA-TR-005

Title: Innovative Methods for Measuring or Monitoring Longitudinal Rail Stress

Description

The stress state of the rail is a key parameter that informs rail safety measures. Effective management of thermal stresses in rail is critical to preventing rail buckles and pull-aparts. This research aims to develop technologies that can determine the in-situ stress state of rail.

Railroad or industry partners are highly encouraged. There are three potential research areas under this topic of interest to FRA:

● This technique will quantify the absolute stress state of the rail and identify its neutral temperature (stress-free state). The system shall operate without disturbing the track structure and without prior knowledge of the rail's zero-stress state.

Offerors shall demonstrate knowledge of past research in this area and an understanding of the scientific and other technical challenges encountered in these past efforts. Only the highest-technology-readiness-level projects will be considered in this area.

● Spot-checking the rail for desirable RNT is insufficient because the U.S. network has 140,000 miles of track. Multiplying that by two for each rail results in 280,000 miles of rail to check for excessive longitudinal force or desirable RNT. The industry needs a measurement system that can be operated at a low cost on revenue service trains to identify locations with undesirable longitudinal force. In estimating RNT, a precise measurement of force from a moving platform is too difficult at this time, but a proxy measurement could be of great value to the industry.

● If the rail's zero-stress state is known, create a low-cost method or device to monitor the stress in a specific location. Only the highest-technology-readiness-level projects will be considered in this area.

Topic: FRA-TR-006

Title: Research and Development on Track Lateral Strength

Description

Track buckles can cause severe accidents. Buckles can occur when the track lacks sufficient lateral resistance and the rails are under high compressive load. Spot-checking the track for adequate lateral resistance is insufficient because the U.S. network has 140,000 miles of track.

This topic is open to research and development work that would advance any of the following goals:

a. Develop a technology to provide a proxy measurement of track lateral strength from an in-motion system.

b. Better characterize ballast consolidation, track lateral strength, and RNT profile maturation in new or freshly tamped tracks as a function of millions of gross tons of traffic.

Offerors shall demonstrate knowledge and comprehension of the scientific and other technical challenges. Offerors shall explain how their proposed research differs from prior work and how it advances the state-of-the-art. Preferences shall be given to research projects and technologies with a higher Technology Readiness Level, ready for field or application testing. Projects should be focused on obtaining significant, measurable results.

Railroad or industry partners are highly encouraged.

Topic: FRA-TR-007

Title: Determining Pre‑break Rail Neutral Temperature, Longitudinal Rail Restraint, and Best Rail Adjustment Practices

Description: To manage thermally induced longitudinal forces in continuous welded rail (CWR), FRA seeks research to improve methods for determining pre‑break rail neutral temperature (RNT) from a track’s longitudinal restraint and the rail gap produced when cut or broken. Projects may refine longitudinal restraint parameters for diverse track constructions, advance or validate field and laboratory techniques to estimate RNT and evolve rail adjustment practices to reduce uncertainty in thermal force predictions. Of particular interest are studies characterizing how rail material properties (e.g., coefficient of thermal expansion, elastic modulus, Poisson’s ratio) vary across service temperatures and rail types and how those variations affect RNT estimation and adjustment decisions.

Proposals that combine field testing, lab characterization, modeling, and uncertainty analysis are encouraged; railroad and industry partnerships are highly desirable to ensure practical relevance and access to sites and materials.

Topic: FRA-TR-008

Title: Scalable Extraction of Railway Infrastructure Geometry, Non-Rail Related Structures, and Human Activity and/or Encroachments on Rail Infrastructure from Remote Sensing Imagery

Description

The geometric characteristics of railway infrastructure are fundamental to maintaining a state of good repair and ensuring safe and reliable railroad operations. Currently, this information is primarily obtained through track charts, scheduled field inspections conducted with specialized inspection vehicles, or through manual measurements. While effective, these approaches are resource-intensive, provide limited network-wide coverage, and require access during designated maintenance windows, constraining their use in frequent or wide-area monitoring.

Recent advances in artificial intelligence, computer vision, and remote sensing offer the potential to enable cost-effective, wide-area monitoring of railway corridors to further include the detection and monitoring of human trespassers on rail infrastructure, encroachment affecting required clearances, and changes in geometric position of track infrastructure using publicly available aerial and satellite imagery. However, existing geospatial analysis workflows are largely designed for general-purpose mapping, often relying on server-class computing resources, and are not optimized to identify railway-specific infrastructure components, human activity, or to extract maintenance-relevant geometric information at the scale needed to support safety oversight and risk-based decision-making.

To address these gaps, this topic seeks to develop efficient, scalable methods that could:

• Identify railway-specific infrastructure elements, including tracks, rails, ties, special trackwork, non-rail related structures, and human activity and/or encroachments on rail infrastructure from large-scale aerial and satellite imagery.

• Extract and define safety-relevant geometric attributes, such as approximate track and rail orientation, tie dimensions, and tie spacing — attributes which can be extracted over defined spatial extents and further define any associated tradeoffs in processing time or data availability associated with improved precision.

• Associate extracted geometric information with approximate geographic coordinates to support integration with existing geospatial and asset management workflows and observed milepost marker to associate data with existing reference systems.

• Process extracted information on alignment and profile to observed track design curvatures, points of curvature, and grades.

• Enable high-throughput analysis using non-server-class hardware/portable computing platforms, supporting flexible and field-deployable real-time use.

The resulting capabilities are intended to support network-level screening, enhance inspection prioritization, and complement existing inspection practices by providing an additional data source for safety-focused maintenance planning and oversight.

Topic: FRA-TR-009

Title: Wheel/Rail Contact Evaluation

Description

This Track topic seeks innovations in the wheel-rail interface. Offerors may present methods of improved understanding and/or inspection specifically relating to the wheel-rail interface or vehicle-track interactions. Offerors may include modeling, validation, on-track testing, or differing and innovative approaches to improving industry understanding of the wheel-rail interface. This may include analysis using wheel profiles, rail profiles, surface conditions, contact angles/locations, and any other condition of wheel-rail or vehicle-track interaction. Offerors should include a partnership with railroad or a related entity.

Topic: FRA-TR-010

Title: Concrete/Composite Tie Advancements

Description

The Federal Railroad Administration is interested in advancements in design, manufacture, installation, and repair of heavy-duty railroad track which is often constructed with concrete or composite ties. Concrete/composite tie failures have been observed due to abrasion of either the rail seat or tie base, structural deterioration due to either splitting or cracking, and deterioration due to material durability problems. These problems are often due to peak stress so techniques to control tie loads using improved rail seat or tie bottom pads are also related to this topic. The topic is focused on improvements that can be linked to previous deterioration mechanisms with new approaches to address the problems. Submissions could range from ways to control loads on existing ties, to using new or emerging materials or methods to make improved ties in the future. The focus should be on improving track performance in support of efficient and reliable heavy axle load freight reliability that is a necessary element for a healthy U.S. economy.

Rolling Stock Topic: FRA-RS-001

Title: Improving the Safety of Hazardous Materials Transportation

Description

While modern tank car shells transporting hazardous material incorporate advanced thermal protection systems (TPS), the service equipment remains a critical vulnerability. During derailments involving pool fires or high-intensity torch fires, the failure of manway assemblies, valves, and fittings often leads to the catastrophic release of hazardous materials. Consequently, there is a pressing need to extend the fire resistance of these components to match the survivability of the tank shell itself.

FRA seeks innovative solutions to strengthen both the thermal and mechanical resilience of tank car service equipment. Proposed projects should focus on the following areas:

• Top-Side Retrofitting: Developing modular, high-efficiency thermal protection systems for top protective housings and manway assemblies that can be seamlessly integrated into the existing fleet.

• Valve Design: Identifying methods to extend the survivability of tank car valves without compromising leak-free performance under normal operating conditions.

• Bottom Outlet Valve (BOV) Protection: Designing fire-mitigation systems for BOVs that provide significant thermal shielding without altering the valve’s mechanical footprint or complicating standard industry loading and unloading procedures.

Systems must withstand long-duration thermal exposure from both pool and torch fire scenarios. Further, solutions must not interfere with current maintenance, inspection, or servicing workflows used by rail operators.

Preference will be given to designs that can be retrofitted to the existing tank car population.

While enhancing fire protection is crucial, any new method or system must not compromise the primary objective of maintaining leak-free integrity or inadvertently cause non-accident releases during normal operation.

TRAIN CONTROL AND COMMUNICATION

Topic: FRA-TC-001

Title: Train Movement Communications System

Description

Railroad wireless communications applications have often been designed around dedicated RF spectrum and protocols, creating challenges in supporting new application development, adopting new communications technology, and supporting more efficient and/or redundant communications. The rail industry is now pursuing a train movement communications system (TMCS) that can support multiple intra-train wireless applications and multiple communications paths. With the AAR choosing 802.16T as the standard protocol for intra-train wireless communication, this research topic seeks to investigate the performance and applicability of this protocol to support various communication applications. FRA areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

a. Dynamic spectrum allocation and management techniques that maintain interoperability between competing railroads.

b. Real-world testing and evaluation of interoperable rail applications using TCMS or 802.16T protocols.

c. Conceptual design of new applications that support improved safety or freight/passenger movement capacity.

Topic: FRA-TC-002

Title: Verification of Position Navigation Module Performance

Description

Higher precision navigation technology (referred to as position navigation modules (PNM), currently being deployed on locomotives across the industry, can improve safety by reducing the need for crew input to reliably determine the track on which a locomotive is operating. However, due to environmental and other variations, this capability requires verification of the performance of the device. This topic seeks to investigate verification methods to ensure correct track selection is done by the crew to improve safety. FRA seeks to develop standardized test requirements, methods, and validation tools to aid the rail industry in evaluating new and better PNM solutions for specific rail scenarios such as track occupancy determination.

Topic: FRA-TC-003

Title: Maintenance of Way (MoW) Employee and Rail Vehicle Safety Systems

Description

Emerging technologies, such as high-precision location, sensors, and communications systems, have the potential to be used to improve safety for roadway workers and MOW vehicles. This topic seeks to explore new technologies, systems, or practices for increased protection of railway workers. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:

a. PTC-enforceable protection for hi-rail and MOW vehicles.

b. Sensor- and communications-based protection of track workers from non-locomotive rail vehicle movements.

Topic: FRA-TC-004

Title: Enhancing Rail Safety Integrity against Quantum-Era Exploitation and Automated Threats

Description

Railroad operations have grown more complex and sophisticated, requiring advanced train control and communication systems to manage and control mobile and fixed assets throughout the network. As the world embarks on new quantum-era computing and tools, malicious actors could use these technologies for rapid exploit deployment. FRA seeks research to address the encryption gap and vulnerability-to-exploitation pipeline, which is currently outpaced by automated tools such as Mythos.

• Problem Statement: Many legacy OT and IoT assets were not designed for modern cryptographic standards or the computational overhead of quantum-resistant algorithms.

This lack of encryption — or reliance on weak, legacy encryption — paired with the rapid development of exploits, creates a structural vulnerability.

• Research Focus: Investigate methods to secure legacy signaling and wayside systems where encryption is weak or non-existent.

• Analyze the impact of supplier-dependency lag, where the time required for a vendor to develop, test, and certify a PQC patch exceeds the speed at which quantum-era exploits are deployed.

• Goal: Develop technical strategies that allow long-lifecycle assets to resist rapid exploitation, even when standard patching cycles are impossible due to safety-critical uptime requirements.