Engineering, Economic and Biological Appraisal of the Present Railroad Box and Hopper Car Cleaning and Sanitation Technology

摘要

The report contains information on the current condition of railcar cleanliness, a state-of-the-art assessment on cleaning railcars and a description of selected cleaning methods employed by other industries to clean transport equipment. The contractors present their concepts for methods of cleaning railroad boxcars and covered hopper cars. Information on how to measure cleanliness in transport equipment is presented followed by the contractors' concepts for improving the cleanliness measurement. Areas where additional research is needed to provide information to develop new cleaning technologies or systems are presented. Appendix lists 16 patents for cleaning devices and lists the personnel contacted to provide information for this study.