Multi-Society Joint Rail Conference to be Held Next Month in Philadelphia

March 10, 2017

The 2017 Joint Rail Conference (JRC 2017), the engineering community’s premier annual technical railroad event in the United States, is only a few weeks away. The conference, which will be held from April 4-7 in Philadelphia, Pa., will encompass the many different disciplines that are involved in freight and passenger rail transportation, including mechanical, electrical, civil, and systems engineering, as well as rail safety, planning, design, manufacturing, financing, operations, and management.

The conference, which will take place at the Doubletree by Hilton Philadelphia City Center, is sponsored by ASME along with a number of other organizations including the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE); the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE); the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine; the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA); and the American Public Transportation Association (APTA).

The meeting’s technical tracks will focus on a variety of topics related to the rail industry, including railroad infrastructure engineering, rail equipment engineering, signal and train control engineering, service quality and operations research, planning and development, safety and security, energy efficiency and sustainability, urban passenger rail transport, electrification, and vehicle-track interaction.

This year’s conference will feature presentations from notable members of the rail industry, including Jeffrey D. Knueppel, general manager of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA); Devin Rouse, staff director of the passenger rail division of the Federal Railroad Administration’s Office of Safety; and Andrew Wood, executive project director for Amtrak's Tier III Trainset Project Management Office.

The 2017 Joint Rail Conference will also feature a special Grand Challenge Competition, during which attendees can pitch their solutions for reducing the number of train accidents in the United States to a panel of experts, and technical tours of SEPTA’s Fern Rock Shop and the transportation authority’s new Crum Creek Viaduct. To learn more about the Grand Challenge Competition, visit www.asme.org/events/joint-rail-conference/program/grand-challenge. For more information about the technical tours, visit www.asme.org/events/joint-rail-conference/program/technical-tours.

To learn more about the 2017 Joint Rail Conference, or for information on registration, visit www.asme.org/events/joint-rail-conference.