RAPID SURVEYING OF A CLASSIFICATION YARD EMPLOYING HIGH-ACCURACY DGPS (RTK)

Faced with a cost and time challenge to survey a fifty-six track classification yard for planned re- surfacing, Norfolk Southern Railway Company (NSR) teamed with a university research group to find a possible solution. Where traditional surveying has taken more than six weeks at similar facilities, the yard was surveyed in three days employing a real-time kinetic (RTK) high- accuracy differential global positioning system, marrying the technical expertise of NSR engineers and innovative technology of Nick J. Rahall Transportation Institute (RTI). The rapid track monitoring and surveying system was adapted to be synchronous with the car classification operations. The accuracy of data collected by this rapid surveying system is compared to traditional leveling conducted on four tracks.