Category: News

The third annual meeting for the National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) was held on Tuesday 26 May 2026 at the iHotel and Conference Center on the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign campus. Over 40 representatives from eight of the nine consortium members attended the meeting in person while additional participants attended remotely. Attendees […]

NURail CoE Director, Dr. Christopher P.L. Barkan, was the 2026 recipient of the Worth Award for Lifetime Achievement. The Worth Award is given to someone who has made a lasting impact on operations, practices, and/or safety in the railway industry over their career and has shared their experience and knowledge with the industry. It is […]

NURail CoE was highlighted in the March 2026 issue of Railway Track & Structures (RT&S) magazine in an article on railway engineering education. The piece discusses the outflow of experienced rail engineering practitioners due to retirement and attrition and the fact that young railroad engineers are surprised to discover that the rail industry uses some […]

The National University Rail Center for Excellence (NURail CoE) is proud to announce that they are once again a Presenting Sponsor for the 2026 Principles of Wheel/Rail Interaction Course. This course will take place on 22 April 2026, one day prior to the 31st Annual Wheel Rail Interaction (WRI) Heavy Haul Conference, in Dallas, TX. […]

NURail CoE recently sponsored the Big Data Conference on 10-11 December 2025 at the University of Delaware. The theme of the conference was “Converting the Mountain of Data Collected by Railway Systems into Effective Maintenance Planning Information with a Focus on Railway Needs and Practical Applications”. Three NURail CoE partners presented research during the conference, […]

Six of the NURail CoE partner universities had representatives that attended Rail Research Week on 17-21 November 2025, in Colorado Springs, Colorado. They were:  The theme for the week was “Inspiring innovative and resilient railways.”  NURail CoE’s 27 presentations and seven session chairs were part of the 700 individual peer-reviewed sessions and papers at the […]

Students and faculty from National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) partner universities attended the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) 2025 Annual Conference & Expo on 14-17 September at the Indianapolis Convention Center in Indianapolis, IN. One NURail CoE graduate student from the University of Illinois Urbana Champaign (UIUC), Coleman Froehlke, gave […]

The second annual meeting for the National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) was held on Tuesday 12 August 2025 at the University of Notre Dame. Attendees took the time to review accomplishments from year one, receive an update from each of the CoE Principal Investigators including highlights from the prior year and plans […]

NURail CoE was a Presenting Sponsor at the Principles of Wheel/Rail Interaction course which preceded the 2025 Wheel Rail Interaction (WRI) Heavy Haul (HH) conference on 10-12 June in Kansas City, MO. J. Riley Edwards, NURail CoE consortium member from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, presented a session on “Track Structures and Components” during the […]

The National University Rail Center of Excellence (NURail CoE) published its inaugural annual report detailing the transportation research, education and workforce development, and technology transfer activities and accomplishments of the center from 3 May 2024 – 2 May 2025. Included in the report are spotlights on each of the nine partner universities detailing one of […]