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The squat, a kind of rolling contact fatigue occurring on the rail top, can excite the high-frequency vehicle–track interaction effectively due to its geometric deviations with a typical wavelength of 20–40 mm, leading to the accelerated deterioration of a track. In this work, a validated 3D transient finite element model is employed to calculate in the time domain the vertical and the longitudinal dynamic contact forces between the wheel and the rail caused by squats. The vehicle–track structure and the wheel–rail continua are both considered in order to include all the important eigencharacteristics of the system related to squats. By introducing the rotational and translational movements of the wheel, the transient wheel–rail rolling contact is solved in detail by a 3D frictional contact model integrated. The contact filter effect is considered automatically in the simulations by the finite size of the contact patch. The present work focuses on the influences of the length, width and depth of a light squat on the resulted dynamic contact forces, for which idealised defect models are used. The growth of a squat is also modelled to a certain extent by a series of defects with different dimensions. The results show that the system is mainly excited at two frequencies separately in the vertical and the longitudinal dynamics. Their superposition explains the typical appearance of mature squats. As a squat grows up, the magnitude of the excited vibration at the lower frequency increases faster than the one at the higher frequency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]