MxV Rail (full legal name: Transportation Technology Center, Inc.) is a
subsidiary of the
Association of American Railroads
The Association of American Railroads (AAR) is an industry trade group representing primarily the major freight Rail transport, railroads of North America (Canada, Mexico and the United States). Amtrak and some regional Commuter rail in North Am ...
(AAR) which conducts railroad equipment testing and training for member railroads.
From 1982 until October 2022, AAR manages operations at the
Transportation Technology Center
The Transportation Technology Center (TTC) is a railroad equipment testing and training facility located northeast of Pueblo, Colorado, owned by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). It was built in 1971 as the High Speed Ground Test Center ...
(TTC) as part of
public-private partnership between AAR and the TTC's owner, the
Federal Railroad Administration
The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail saf ...
(FRA). The TTC is a railroad equipment testing facility located northeast of
Pueblo, Colorado
Pueblo () is a home rule municipality that is the county seat and the most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The city population was 111,876 at the 2020 United States Census, making Pueblo the ninth most populo ...
. AAR formed its Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) subsidiary in 1998, and TTCI has assumed the contract.
In March 2021, TTCI lost the contract to operate the TTC, effective October 2022. In March 2022, AAR rebranded TTCI as MxV Rail, as it works to establish its own testing facility in Pueblo.
History
The facility operations and maintenance for TTC has been the responsibility of a contractor since July 1972.
[alternative PDF link]
/ref> Due to reduced funding that threatened to close TTC, the FRA entered a public-private partnership with AAR in 1982, who would take over "care, custody, and control" of the facility. AAR formed its TTCI subsidiary to administer the contract in 1998 and the contract has been renewed periodically as a single-source award since then.
In March 2021, the FRA awarded the operations and maintenance contract to ENSCO, Inc., who will assume responsibility for research and development, testing, engineering, and training services at TTC from TTCI starting in October 2022. In addition, ENSCO will expand the use of TTC to support more general ground transportation research.
In April, TTCI announced plans to build a new, independent research facility in Pueblo after reaching an agreement with the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation (PEDCO). The new facility would be in the PuebloPlex industrial park (site of the former Pueblo Chemical Depot
The Pueblo Chemical Depot is a chemical weapons storage site located in Pueblo County, Colorado, United States. The Pueblo Chemical Depot is one of the last two sites in the United States with chemical munitions and chemical material. The Pueblo ...
), just south of the TTC.
In March 2022, the AAR announced that TTCI would be rebranded into MxV Rail, a name based on the mathematical formula for momentum: mass x velocity.
Facilities
At the PuebloPlex, MxV Rail plans to build a high-tonnage loop for accelerated service testing and curve negotiation loops, along with related infrastructure to support certification testing by the AAR.
References
External links
Transportation Technology Center, Inc.Association of American Railroads
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Organizations established in 1998
Rail transportation in Colorado
Railway test tracks
Transportation in Pueblo County, Colorado
1971 establishments in Colorado