RAILWAY ENGINEERING

(CENG 5341)
CHAPTER 1
Introduction

Ins.Biruk M.
 Course Objective
 To thoroughly introduce the railway system and engineering
from civil works perspective .
The civil engineering sub-course aims to:
 Define the system and distinguish the fixed infrastructure
of the system where civil engineers are mainly engaged
 Tell the story of infrastructure development from historic
point of view
 Introduce the preliminary design process of railway
components
 Introduce and characterize the components of railroad civil
works
 Recognize the design considerations and design technical
standards
 Inform the construction process and operation of railway
industry
 Chapter-1 BASICS OF RAILWAY
Chapter 1. Introduction
– Railway Transport system
– Historic development of railway
– Components of railway
– General principle for railway construction and
development
– Railway classification and items of Main Technical
standards
 1.1 Railway Transport system
Definition : A railroad consists of two steel rails
which are held a fixed distance
Rail transport refers to the apart on a roadbed. Vehicles,
land transport of people guided and supported by flanged
steel wheels and connected into
or goods along guided trains, are propelled as a means of
paths called railways. A transportation.
railway consists of two
parallel rail tracks at a
fixed distance (gauge)
apart, usually made of
steel and mounted upon
cross beams called ties or
sleepers”
 Railway transport system Cont’d
• Functions:
• Important infrastructure of a country
• Artery of national economy
• Backbone of traffic and transport system
• Characteristics:
• large transport capacity/volume
• Low cost/energy cost, travel time, power etc./
• Energy saving and
• Environmentally friendly
 Railway significance 
 It has a high level of passenger or cargo utilization over a
limited space (Limited use of space compared to large
transport capacity)
 Most efficient energy consumer (1/3 of road transport and
1/7 to 1/5 of air transport)
 Minimum friction and minimum air resistance/guided
movement/
 Environmentally friendly
 Mostly electric powered
 Safest and Reliability mode of land transport with the lowest
accident rate
 It offers comfortable ride options such as meal, sleeping and
entertainment
 High degree of automation and management
 Drawbacks 
• Huge initial investment and operation costs

• Cannot support severe alignments such as steep

slopes and sharp curves

• Low flexibility in terms of network operations

• Severity of accidents is high (but low frequency)

• Security threat as it is prone to attacks

1.2 Historic development of Railway

600 BC- Ship Track way in Ancient Rome and Greek

1550’s - Hand propelled tubs in Germany

1630- Wagon roads for coal mines pulled by horse carts in Beaumont,
England

1776- First cast iron rails on timber ties laid in tram ways in England
 The 19th century…
1807- first passenger train ran from Swansea to Mumbles and first
railway station

1830 - The first railway in the United States opens with mostly hardwood
rail topped with iron

1857 - Steel rails first used in Britain

1863 - First underground railway opened in London

 20 th century and onwards…

1906- First use of concrete sleepers in Germany

1937-41 - Magnetic levitation (maglev) train patents awarded in Germany

1959- Construction of the Bullet train in Tokyo, Japan

Post WWII- Welded rail, heavier rail-profiles, slab track, innovative elastic
fastenings, mechanization of maintenance
 History of Ethiopian railway

2007-
National
1906- Railway Dev
firm went launched by
1897- bankrupt 1917- CoM
Construction and the line Regulation
began from constructio reached No. 141/2007
Djibouti n halted A.A and ERC
established

2006-
1908- Compagnie Agreement
1901- with Italian
de Chemin de
first Fer Franco- Company
commerci Ethiopien Consta to
Djibouti à Addis rehabilitate the
al service line
from Ababa took over
and began
Djibouti to reconstruction
Dire Dawa
 The legacy railway…
1000 mm gauge and diesel traction
Owned and administered by the
governments of Djibouti and
Ethiopia
 781km – 681 in Ethiopia and 100 in
Djibouti)
Suffers from old-age, lack of spares,
high operating cost, worn out track,
no Locomotives, very low capacity
 Ethiopian national railway program[ENRP]
 5000 km of national railway line
 Standard Gauge (1435 mm)
 Electric Traction
 High capacity (25 ton/axle)
 High speed (120 -160 km/hr for
passenger and 80 -120 km/hr
for freight)
 Concrete sleeper
(160cm X20.5cmX22cm)

• 34km of Fully electrified LRT for

Addis Ababa
•Standard Gauge (1.435 meters) and
double track for the whole route
•Capacity: 80,000 PPH
(Passenger/hr)
• Headway: 6min with a potential of
reducing to 90secs
•Passenger-km based fare system
Regional integration in Africa…
Progress to date…
 1.3 Components of Railway
Rolling Stock Permanent Infrastructure

Power Supply
Signal and Communication
 Components…
• Railway is a permanent way composed of
subway, bridge ,culvert, tunnel ,track, station,
switches etc.
• In order to provide smooth and stable
geometry state, earth structures shall be built
by cutting and filling the ground.
• For spanning rivers or gorges, bridges or
culverts shall be built.
• For pass through mountains, mountains shall
be excavated to construct tunnels.
 Cont’d
• For trains passing and overtaking, stations
shall be built. As for unfavorable geologic
body which is difficult to detour, engineering
improvement measures shall be taken in order
to ensure operation safety.
 Major components…

Alignment
Track
Tunnel
Bridge

Station

Earth Work
 What types of Civil Works?
Design

Construction

Operation and
maintenance
 1.4 General principle for railway
construction and development
• Based on the strategies of national economy and
social development and the demands of territorial
development,
• national defense
• transport market
• highlighting key points and strengthening weak links,
• coordinated development with other traffic and
transport modes and relevant industries such as
energy industry.
 General principles…
• Directed by national development strategies
• Oriented by market, centered with benefit and on
the premise of transport safety
• Actively adopting mature, advanced, economic,
practical & reliable technologies and emphasizing
comprehensive integration of technologies
• Insisting on the principle of using optimized
system to maximize comprehensive benefit
 Design year of railway construction
• Short term: The tenth year after delivery
for operation
• Long term: The twentieth year after
delivery for operation
N.B:- Traffic volumes in short term and long
term are both forecasted.
 1.5 Railway Classification & Main
Technical Standards
1.5.1 Railway Classification:
• is the class grade of a railway classified
according to its role in railway network,
properties, volume of passenger traffic, goods
traffic volume, maximum allowable axle load,
design speed, etc.
• is the basic standard of a railway system,
which is the basis to determine the technical
standards and equipment types.
 Classification…cont’d
• When railway is designed, railway
classification should be determined
• Due to the reasons of
vast territory,
complicated topography,
unbalanced population and resources distribution
and
the different economic conditions
 Classification….cont’d
• railway’s role in network, properties,
volume of passenger & goods traffic,
maximum allowable axle load and speed
are different. Hence, railways should be
classed in to different grades
 Basis of railway classification
• Basses for railway classification
include
– axle load of rolling stock,
– maximum running speed,
– volume of passenger and goods traffic,
– designed speed, and
– significance of railway construction.
 Basis of railway classification
1. Axle load of rolling stock
 Axle load is one of major basis to determine
the design load standard.
 Axle load of locomotives affect the power of
locomotive, and car’s axle load affect the
train’s load per meter. The bridge load and
track type is controlled by car’s axle loads.
 Basis of railway classification
2. maximum speed
The maximum speed is one of the most
important marker of railway transportation
quality.
It affects the travelling time of passenger and
freight trains, traffic capacity and the using
condition of rolling stock.
 It also affect construction cost, expenditure for
buying rolling stock, locomotive energy
consumption，transportation cost, etc.
 Basis of railway classification
The running speed is limited by the power of
locomotive, the standards of alignment and
track, level of signal facilities, method of
traffic control, traffic organization, etc.
The Maximum speed is the major technical
parameter to determine the
radius of horizontal & vertical curves
 length of transition curve
the type of track.
 Basis of railway classification
3. Annual Volume of Passenger and Goods
traffic
• it is the main base for
- designing transport capacity
- evaluation of economic effectiveness
- determination of route alternatives
• The annual volume of passenger and goods
traffic affect the track-train interaction，track
deformation, residual life of structures.
 Cont’d
• In general, railway investment cost, cost of
railway traffic and traffic revenue shall be
decided by annual volume of passenger and
goods traffic.
• For these reasons, under the same service life,
equipment with high standards should be used
in the railway with heavy traffic volume.
 Basis of Classification…cont’d
• Example:- In china, railways are classified in
to three categories based on the annual volume
of passenger and fright traffic, role they played
in railways network, and maximum design
speed. These are:
1. Railway line for passenger traffic
2. Railway line for mixed passenger and
freight traffic
3. Line for goods traffic
 Cont’d
• These further classified in to seven grades:
High speed line
Rapid speed line
Classes Ⅰ~Ⅳ
Heavy haul railway
1. Railway line for passenger traffic
• Mainly responsible for transportation of
passenger with design speed of passenger car
not less than 200km/h. Further classified as:
1) High-speed railway :
 Railways for passenger with maximum design
speed of 250km/h and over and play trunk
parts in railway network
 Generally built in a developing region where is
densely populated and has a heavy volume of
passenger traffic.
 Cont’d
• It links political center and economic center, or
economic center and economic center.
• On high-speed line, passenger trains could
operate with speed of 250km/h or over in main
section, the seating capacity could be up to
1600 persons per train, the maximum traffic-
carrying capacity could be 2*32000person or
over.
 Cont’d
2) Rapid -speed railway
• Railways are classified as rapid-speed railways
which play a linking and auxiliary part in
railway network for passenger traffic, with
designed speed of 250km/h or lower.
• In China, rapid-speed line also classified as
rapid-speed trunk line for passenger traffic or
inter-city line in terms of the role in rapid
railway passenger transport network, transport
demand, and service area.
 2. Railway line for mixed passenger
and freight traffic
• These railway lines are responsible for
passenger and fright transportation, with
design speed of 160km/h or lower (passenger
train) and 120km/h (fright train).
• Railways for mixed passenger and fright traffic
can be classified as 4 grades,
ClassⅠ, ClassⅡ, ClassⅢ, and ClassⅣ.
 Cont’d
• The class of a new line or reconstructed
railway should be determined in terms of
• the role in railway network
• Properties
• Design speed of passenger train and
• volume of passenger and fright traffic
And Should meet the following requirements
 Cont’d
• Class I Railway: Play a trunk part in railway
network, and the volume of short-term traffic
is no less than 20 million tons.
• ClassⅡRailway: Play a linking and auxiliary
part in railway network, and the volume of
short-term traffic is less than 20 million tons.
• ClassⅢ Railway: Give service to a local zone,
and the volume of short-term traffic is less
than 20 million tons and larger than 5 million
tons.
 Cnt’d
• ClassⅣ Railway: Give service to a local zone,
and the volume of short-term traffic is less
than 5 million tons.
1.5.2 Items of Main technical standards

• Main technical standards includes the

basic standards and types of railway
facilities, which shall give obvious
influence on the traffic capacity,
construction cost, operation quality, and
the selection of other equipment
standards.
 Main technical Standards…cont’d
• The design of railway of mixed service shall include
main technical standards of the following:
- ruling grade
minimum radius of curvature
 available length of arrival & departure
kind of energy supply
types of locomotives
tonnage rating
locomotive routing and
type of blocking.
 Cont’d
Main technical standards for railway of
passenger traffic include:
designed speed
distance between centers of main line tracks
minimum plane curve radius
maximum gradient
available length of arrival and departure line
EMU type
train operation control mode
train operation command mode
minimum head
Thanks