The Volpe Center, Dow Chemical Company, Union Pacific Railroad, and the Union Tank Car Company are collaborating on a high priority, fast-track effort to improve the safety of railroad tank cars carrying hazardous materials (HAZMAT). The objective of this joint government/industry effort, called the Next-Generation Rail Tank Car (NGRTC) Project, is to design a rail tank car that will meet or exceed performance requirements while improving safety and security. This includes full-scale impact tests to evaluate the crashworthiness of rail tank cars under accident loading conditions.

The results from the tests will be used to support a Notice for Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM) developed by the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) and the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) in the creation of the new regulations and by the NGRTC project team as it continues to construct a new tank car design. In January 2007 the FRA signed a Memorandum of Cooperation with the sponsors of the NGRTC project to share research information.

In April 2007, a full-scale shell-impact test was conducted on a rail tank car donated by Dow at the Transportation Technology Center (TTC) in Pueblo, Colorado. In this context, shell impact means that the rail tank car is impacted at the side by another rail car. The test was conducted at an impact speed of 14 miles per hour and resulted in a 9-inch deep dent.

In July, another full-scale shell impact test on a railroad tank car designed to carry chlorine was successfully completed at the TTC. This test resulted in rupture of the tank car shell.

Detailed data will be analyzed by the FRA, Volpe Center staff, and contractors, not only to improve tank cars but also to verify and validate analysis tools under development for the project. With the assistance of this ongoing research, FRA, in conjunction with PHMSA, is working to develop new hazardous material tank car safety standards. The target date for a prototype next-generation tank car is April 2008, with the first cars entering service in 2010.