Motto: “I am not the Messiah!”, Brian [Later edit: I wrote this during the pandemic, not in a very happy state of mind, nostalgic about good old and normal times, and dreaming of white whales. It is a personal opinion and, to a degree, an expression of powerless frustration. Don’t take it too seriously!] For…
The running of the trains over the railway track is inducing vertical and lateral forces that, in time, are affecting the track alignment, changing incrementally the installed track and causing track irregularities. On curved track this deterioration process is more significant due to the additional effect of the lateral (centrifugal) acceleration. When the irregularities become…
The measurement and analysis of track geometry is carried out regularly by all the railway infrastructure administrators in order to obtain data from which the track quality is established and the maintenance can be scheduled (Cope – 1993). Historically, the use of track inspection cars can be traced back to the early 1920’s in France…
This is the presentation I gave to the Glasgow Section of the Permanent Way Institution: Track Quality Measurement and Inherent Design Standard Deviation Later note: Some fundamental things stated in this presentation need to be revised.
Motto: Tolle lege! Perhaps the best and most complete technical book about track is “Modern Railway Track” written by Dr Coenraad Esveld, Professor of Railway Engineering at Delft University of Technology. A detailed Table of Contents of the second edition can be found here together with a brief selection of the book. The second edition, written…
Track measurement The importance of knowing the track geometric quality arose in the middle of 20th century, when European infrastructure managers developed their own track recording vehicles allowing a continuous measurement of track geometry and based on this, their own track geometry quality evaluation standards (EN 13848-6). Periodic track measurement is required to evaluate the…
A railway track blog 