rail engineering

8/17/2019 Rail Engineering

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5/9/2016

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Swinburne University

of

Technology

Faculty of Engineering and Industrial Design

CVE30003 TRANSPORT ENGINEERING

LECTURE 1 ‐ RAIL SYSTEMS

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Lecture Synopsis

• Some Definitions

• The Evolution of Railways

• The Liverpool & Manchester Railway (L&MR) – the first commercially operated railway in the world

• Development of railways in Victoria and Australia

• Rail system types‐ Passenger/Freight

• Key components of Rail Systems Infrastructure

• Rail Infrastructure – Rail tracks ‐ Geometric Design

• Rail Infrastructure ‐ Rail Signalling and Safe working

• Rail System

Capacity

• Passenger/Freight Timetabling

• Train Crew Scheduling

• Railways in the 21st Century

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Definitions

Railway or Railroad

A railway or railroad can be defined as ‘narrow tracks of rails, or plinths of iron,

wood or other tenacious material, made with very smooth or level surfaces and

laid down with great solidity and truth, to the required planes, so that the wheels

of carriages may meet with the least resistance that is practicable in rolling over

them and thus reduce as much as possible the power required to move a given

load or to move the greatest load by a given power, or move a given load at the

highest velocity.

From:

Hebert L ‘A Practical Treatise on Railroads and Locomotive Engines’, London, 1837.

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Railway System

A means of transport for passengers and freight whereby vehicles are coupled

together as trains and pulled or propelled by mechanized motive power along rail

tracks in conjunction with the use of complex safe‐working systems that have been

developed over many years to control operations and movements.

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Heavy Rail and Light Rail Systems

Heavy rail systems involve trains operating on their own exclusive reservation or ‘right of way’.

Light rail systems may operate in their own exclusive reservations, or in shared rights of way with road vehicles in city and suburban streets.

Note:

Modern equipment standards have tended to blur the boundaries between ‘heavy’ and ‘light’ rail systems.

For example, if light rail services share the track with ‘heavy rail’ type services, then the light rail vehicle may require a higher standard of crashworthiness in the event

of

a collision.

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Motive Power

The mechanized motive power for pulling or propelling a train is located either at

the head

or

tail

end

of

the

train

or

alternatively

it

is

distributed

throughout

the

train.

1. Electric and Diesel Electric Locomotives

Head end, distributed and tail end power usually refers to separate locomotives being attached to the front, middle or rear of the train.

Locomotives are generally electric or diesel‐electric.

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• Electric locomotives draw power from overhead line equipment (OLE) generally at25kV AC

although there are still railways that utilize DC power (e.g. Victoria & NSW, 1.5kV DC).

• Diesel‐electric locomotives use a diesel engine to drive an alternator to generate electricity

on board the locomotive.

• Both electric and diesel‐electric locomotives use electricity to power traction motors through

a gearing mechanisms that is attached to a ‘wheel set’.

• Diesel–electric locomotives carry their own fuel source that is usually located in fuel tanks

below the floor of the locomotive.

• The technology for diesel electric locomotives is quite advanced particularly with newer

locomotives and their fuel consumption.

• In Russia, Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) is now being used for locomotive power after a

number of years of R&D.

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2. Electric or Diesel Multiple Unit Passenger Trains

A number of carriages (2 to 10 or greater) semi‐permanently coupled together into

a unit/s. Each unit has a Driver’s cab at either end (although some are completely

automated and have no cabs). A series of units coupled together becomes a

multiple unit. The units are self ‐propelled i.e. there is no separate locomotive.

There are two types of multiple unit:

• Electric Multiple Unit (EMU)

• Diesel Multiple Unit (DMU)

A Class Double Deck EMU‐ Sydney NSW V/Line ‘Velocity’ DMU

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