Track Maintenance: Management and Planning

In 1978, excess of 3.4 billion dollars was spent for maintenance and improvements of the fixed plants of American railroads. The lack of an accepted model of track deterioration makes an analytical approach to the planning and control of routine track maintenance difficult. Researchers are presently attempting to formulate a track deterioration model which could be utilized to analytically predict track maintenance requirements. Railroads cannot afford, however, to wait for the development of such a model to implement improvements to the planning and performance of track maintenance, particularly in the area of routine maintenance. Conrail has developed a Track Maintenance Management System (TMMS), which can be used for the control of routine track maintenance, and has a limited maintenance planning capability. Upon the development of a workable model of track deterioration, it can be integrated into the TMMS to create a Track Maintenance Planning System (TMPS).