Description

This report presents a multi-hazard risk and resilience assessment of the U.S. rail network. The research identifies at-risk rail segments exposed to flash flooding, riverine flooding, extreme heat, and landslides using historical hazard records, federal accident and incident data, and meteorological datasets spanning 2000–2024. Flood exposure is mapped nationally by linking storm records to rail alignments and estimating the frequency and intensity of events at the segment level. For extreme heat, a fragility analysis of 153 documented thermal buckling derailments reveals that a significant share of failures occurred under relatively mild environmental conditions, pointing to infrastructure and maintenance factors rather than weather alone. Geographic patterns show elevated risk in the northern United States for maintenance-driven failures and in the Southwest for environmentally driven events. Results are presented at national, railroad owner, and state scales to support risk mitigation, maintenance prioritization, and resilience planning across the rail network.

Publication Date

9-14-2026

Publication Type

Report

Topic

Miscellaneous, Transportation Engineering

Digital Object Identifier

10.31979/mti.2026.2413.1

MTI Project

2413.1

Keywords

Rail network resilience, Natural hazard risk assessment, Flash flood exposure, Extreme heat, Thermal buckling, Fragility functions, Sun kink derailments, Infrastructure vulnerability

Disciplines

Transportation

Download

Share

COinS