MIZAN-TEPI UNIVERSITY

RAILWAY
ENGINEERING
(CENG 5301)

Instructor: Miss. Ngiste Amare

amarengiste@[Link]
NOVEMBER, 2014
 Chapter-1 INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1. Basics of railway

1.1 Railway Transportation System
1.2 Historic Development of Railway
1.3 Components of railway
1.4 General Principle for Railway Construction and
Development
1.5 Railway classification and 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
apart, (gauge)
usually
steel and made
mounted upon
of ties or
cross beams called
sleepers”
Cont’d
 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 time,
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

 20th 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
1897- bankrupt 1917- by 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)

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Regional integration in Africa…
 1.3 Components of Railway
Rolling Stock Permanent Infrastructure

Power Supply
Signal and Communication
 Components…
• A railway has two major components:
1. The infrastructure (the permanent way, and
freight facilities).
2. The rolling stock (the locomotives,
passenger coaches, freight cars, etc.)
• 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.
 Components…
• For spanning rivers or gorges, bridges
or culverts shall be built.
• For pass through mountains, mountains
shall be excavated to construct tunnels.

• 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 after
year 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
 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
 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
 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
train operation control mode train operation
command mode minimum head