Modern freight locomotives are built to crashworthiness standards that are defined in Subpart D of Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 229 and Association of American Railroads (AAR) S-580 standards [1, 2]. The first freight locomotive crashworthiness standard, AAR S-580, was released in 1989 and became effective as of August 1990 [3]. Locomotives that were manufactured before the 1990, so-called “legacy”, lack the crew protection offered by the modern “crashworthy” locomotives [4]. While legacy locomotives, such as narrow-nose designs that were manufactured before 1990s, are generally relegated to non-lead locomotive service in Class I railroads, these units are sometimes used in mainline service. Even though the number of narrow-nose locomotives has declined, there remains a risk of injuries and fatalities for the crew for the next several years.
The scope of this study is the following;
• The assessment of injuries and fatalities from collisions involving legacy locomotives,
• The crashworthiness evaluation of collision posts for a sample legacy (narrow-nose, legacy) locomotive assembled in the 1960s and rebuilt in 2001,
• Analysis of alternative collision post designs to meet and exceed the collision post requirements in the 2001 version of AAR S-580.
