LABORATORY STUDY FOR DETERMINING GEOTECHNICAL ENGINEERING PROPERTIES OF CEMENT-

TREATED AND -UNTREATED BACKFILL SOILS USED IN HIGH SPEED RAILWAY EMBANKMENTS

BACKGROUND

The history of railways is closely linked with human civilization. As necessity arises, human
beings develop various methods of transporting goods from one place to another. In the past good were
carried as head loads or in charts drawn by men or animals. Then efforts were made to replace animal
power with mechanical power. In 1769, Nicholes Carnot, a Frenchman, carried out the pioneering work
of developing system energy. This work had very limited success and it was only in the year 1804 that
Richard Trevithick designed and constructed a steam locomotive. This locomotive, was used for pulling
loaded wagons on roads. The credit of perfecting the design goes to George Stephenson, who in 1814
produced the first steam locomotive used for pulling rail cars in railways.

The first public railway in the world was opened to traffic on 27 September 1825 between Stockton
and Darlington in the United Kingdom. Simultaneously, other countries in Europe also developed similar
railway systems, including trains for carrying passenger traffic during that time. The first railway in
Germany was opened from Nurenberg to Furth in 1835. The USA opened its first railway line between
Mohawk and Hudson in 1833 (Chandra and Agarwal, 2008). The first railway construction in
Turkey has began between zmir and Aydn on 23 September 1856 by an English Company. Railway length
was 130 km, and it was finished in 1866.

In 1869, the first Transcontinental Railroad of North America was completed across the United
States from Omaha, Nebraska to Sacramento, California. It was built by Central Pacific and Union Pacific
(Wikipedia, 2009).

The first electric locomotive was demonstrated in Berlin in 1879. Electric traction was
commercially applied to the first suburban and metropolitan lines, but was also quickly adopted for
underground railways. One of the earliest users of electric locomotives on mainline routes was Italy,
where a line was opened in 1902.

The railways proved strategically important on all fronts in the World War I. After the war, many railway
companies grouped together to form national railway systems or large geographical concerns. Following
the World War II, there was a period of reconstruction for railways, during which time new steam
locomotives were introduced in the UK and mainland Europe and new diesels were also tested (A
Dictionary of World History, 2000).

Immediately after the World War II , Japan started speedy railway reconstruction, including high
speed railways. 1956 saw the first feasibility studies conducted for a new line linking Tokyo and Osaka. It
was then decided to design the line for a design speed of 250 km/hr (UIC, 2006).

In 1964, the high-speed Shinkansen or bullet trains began operation, running on a specially
developed track at speeds of up to 210 km/hr (A Dictionary of World History 2000). A maximum speed of
443 km/hr was recorded in a test run in 1996 (Wikipedia, 2000). During 1981, in France, the
TGV (Train Grande Vitesse) trains began operation between Paris and Lyons, with speed of 260 km/hr. A
maximum speed of 515,3 km/hr was recorded on 18 May 1990 by the TGV Atlantic.

Germany launched the first ICE (Inter City Express) trains on lines between Hanover and
Würzburg with a design speed of 250 km/hr, in 1991. A maximum speed of 406,9 km/hr was recorded in
1988.

Spain Railway (RENFE) has operated AVE (Alta Velocidata Espanola) trains between Madrid and
Seville in 1992. AVE’s design speed was close to TGV and Shinkansen trains (250 km/hr).

Sweden decided to upgrade existing lines to a accommodate speeds of around 200 km/hr, at a
reasonable cost, using tilt-body technology. Thus X2000 trains began operation between Stockholm and
Gothenburg line, in 1998.

The Taiwan High Speed Railways, also known as the THSR, is Taiwan’s high-speed rail network,
running approximately 335.50 kilometers from Taipei City to Kaohsiung City, which began operations on
5 January 2007. Adopting Japan’s Shinkansen technology for the core system, the THSR uses the Taiwan
High Speed type: 700T train, manufactured by a consortium of Japanese companies, most notably
Kawasaki Heavy Industries.