Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Ballastless Track For Urban Transit Line PDF
Ballastless Track For Urban Transit Line PDF
Ballastless Track For Urban Transit Line PDF
Dr S Ponnuswamy, Fellow
Ballast has been an integral part of railway track for many years. It has many advantages. It is an economical medium
providing an elastic support to the sleepers and absorbs major part of the noise created by passing wheels. Material is locally
available. But ballasted track calls for frequent maintenance attention, and periodical screening and recoupment. It also
causes dust pollution. Hence, railways all over have been researching and developing a more permanent track base, in
form of ballastless track for their high speed lines and urban transit lines. Though they will be more expensive, they will
be most cost effective for such lines. This paper reviews the research and development work done so far on such tracks and
different types in use. It suggests desirable criteria for design of such tracks in India, in the context of planning being done
for urban rail transit lines in a number of Indian cities.
INTRODUCTION the track maintenance calls for and it has become difficult to
lure younger people to such tasks. This has led countries like
Need for Ballastless Track Japan to look for track forms, which require low maintenance
The three basic requisites of laying a good railway track are efforts. Ballasted tracks are also becoming more difficult to
economy, safety and comfort. The comfort includes not only maintain due to their getting pounded under heavier loads
the riding comfort to the passengers, but also causing least causing drainage problems. They also cause rise of dust by the
disturbance to the inhabitants around, ie, environmental non- trains passing at higher speeds, adversely affecting the
degradation. Traditional tracks on wooden and metal sleepers environment.
with good ballast cushion and shoulders satisfied all these
requirements in the normal traffic conditions prevailing till few DEVELOPMENT OF BALLASTLESS TRACK (BLT)
decades back. However, these required constant attention to This problem has received attention since as early as 1925 in
packing, lining and level adjustments. Increased traffic density Japan. The Japanese tried some form of BLT (ballastless track)
and increased speeds on railways became necessary to suit in one of their subways in 1947. It appears Teito Rapid Transit
growing economy and competition. In such cases the Authority is perhaps the first railway to use ballastless track on
conventional tracks were found lacking. These require larger scale. Figure 1 shows the form used on their Tozai line
subway completed in 1964. In about same period, London
o better load distribution requiring increased ballast
Transport used in their underground sections a design by
cushion;
embedding wooden sleepers at ends in a concrete bed, leaving
o stabler track with minimum joints leading to the space between filled with ballast. At the same time different
development of CWR and concrete sleepers; forms of such tracks were being tried by a number of other
railway systems for their subways both on the main lines in
o more frequent and higher level of attention to track tunnels and Metro lines. Switzerland and Germany were the
increasing costs; and forerunners in use of BLT on main line and Moscow for their
(Metros) subways on a large scale.
o more time than what is now available for track
maintenance operations due to frequency of trains. The earliest form used on main line in the Alpine tunnels
consists 30 mm-65 mm size ballast compacted, overlaid by (a) a
On main lines, possession or line block times available for 10 mm layer of fine sand; (b) 150 mm to 200 mm thick grouted
machine tamping etc, is becoming shorter and shorter and on concrete; (c) 50 mm thick bitumenised concrete; and (d) 120 mm
urban transit lines, only time available for maintenance is from thick concrete with recesses at 650 mm spacing for fixing pot
0000 h to 0400 h mostly. In addition the demographic change of type sleepers [ORE D57 R1, 1966].
the average age of track workers has been increasing with higher
proportion in the population of older people, particularly in European and UK Rail systems started trying a number of slab
developed countries. They cannot cope with the kind of tasks, track forms in the sixties for their proposed high-speed lines and
also for reducing the maintenance problems elsewhere,
Dr S Ponnuswamy formerly with Southern Railways resides at specially in tunnels. They were quite concerned about the
56, Venkatratnam Nagar, Adyar, Chennai 600 020. behaviour of the slab track in respect of transmission of
This paper was received on December 09, 2003. Written discussion on this vibration to surrounding ground and increased noise levels
paper will be received till January 31, 2005. caused inside trains and outside. A study by ORE in 1976
1067
Rail 60 kg/m
300 R.L.
180
10
4 50
First Pour
200
invert concrete Precast concrete block
Second pour concrete
Early systems Steel hooks
indicated prevalence of following types of BLT on different adopted in Netherlands (Figure 3). But it will be the most
urban rail systems then: expensive1.
(i) Laying concrete sleepers or blocks over a base or deck For the bridges and viaducts DB (German) Railway and Berlin
slab and subsequently stabilizing by pouring grout or Metro have gone in for a type with precast sleepers embedded in
concrete around them (Budapest and Sonneville). concrete within a precast RCC trough form of track slab which
is laid in lengths of 4100 mm to 4450 mm with 100 mm joint gap.
(ii) Laying tracks complete with fasteners and dowels on
This is laid over the deck slab with a wedge slab (to take care of
auxiliary sleepers supported by special props and
any cant to be provided for the track) intervening. Stopper
subsequently pouring longitudinal beams below
sockets are provided at the ends of slabs corresponding to stubs
(Cologne, Germany).
cast as part of the track slab. (Figure 4)2.
(iii) Laying a continuous RCC floor on tunnel floor or over
formation, laying rails with rubber pads and elastic The Japanese Railways were looking for a form for their high
fastenings in position and fixing to concrete slab with speed Shinkansen lines. The Railway Track Research Centre of
proper holding down/anchoring (Japan and UK). the Japanese Railways had taken up research studies for
evolving a low maintenance track for their high-speed lines
(iv) Laying the concrete slab to proper tolerances and then since 1964. Their development has been essentially as track
fixing the rail with base plates and rubber pads on the slabs over partly flexible base like bitumen base. Initially they
same with proper holding down arrangements used these for tunnels and viaduct structures only but now they
(Netherlands).
French developed a variant of type (i) with sleeper blocks (one
under each rail) embedded in a second pour concrete over a Two block reinforced
concrete sleeper
solid base with a micro cellular elastic pad at bottom enclosed Rail fastenings
Microcellular
within a shoe around foot of such sleeper block. This was resilient pad
christened as Sonneville type and is shown in Figure 2. A
number of minor variants under this category have since been Rubber shoe
commercially developed and patented in Europe, namely, 12mm
Walo in Netherlands, Stedef in France. One of the latest
developments is the one in which the concrete slab below is laid
with longitudinal recesses for laying the running rails over
special pads (Corke pads) fixing the same rail in position by
pads at intervals on the side and filling space around with a Concrete bed Cement mortar
special compound. This type is reported to give best
performance from support and noise point of view and is being Figure 2 Concrete sleepers in a rubber shoe in concreteStedef (France)
the principles of embedded rail construction the channel containing the embedded rail
are using these on major portion of at grade sections also. The cracks and preventing water penetration, which would lead to
earlier form consists of precast concrete slabs laid over a freezing ice damage. Slab thickness was increased from 16 cm to
Cement Asphalt Mortar (CAM) layer. Slabs are generally 19 cm. These were protected by a steel frame in subsequent
5000 mm long and 2350 mm wide for the 1435 mm gauge. At designs. So they developed a vibration reducing type slab for
ends stopper concrete stubs (400 mm dia and 200 mm high) are bringing vibration under high speeds within human acceptance
provided between the slabs extending from the tunnel invert or level. In this a rubber slab mat is provided between the CAM
viaduct slabs and for which semi-circular slots are provided in layer and track slab. Over central portion of viaduct structures
the precast slabs. Rails are fixed over steel bearing plates or pads they used a grooved type of slab mat.
(tie plate type). Figure 5 shows the arrangement.
American main line railways do not appear to have developed
Initial CAM used was found to be weak in freezing and thawing such tracks on large scale. This aspect till recently has been in
conditions. So a cold restraint type was evolved for such areas- discussion stage only. The urban rail transit systems of recent
CAM Type AE PRC slabs were used in cold areas to avoid origin in the USA have gone in for ballast less track for both
Section A– A
Concrete trough
160
150
700
Protective concrete Elastomer layer
140
2800
Section B – B
7. 80m
Figure 4 Diagram of Berlin-type ballastless track, showing the stoppers in the protective concrete and the slots in the underside of the reinforced
concrete trough
1920 1950
1490
1673
Item Tokyo Osaka New York Paris Stockholm San Francisco Great Britain Hong Kong
Level, max +/ 3 +/ 3 +/ 3 +/ 1.5 +/ 3 +/ 3 +/ 3 +/ 3
Alignment 3 mm 3 mm 3 mm 1.5 mm 5 mm 3 mm 4 mm 3 mm
over 10 m over 10 m over 9 m over 25 m over 10 m over 9 m over 10 m over 3 m
UIC 60
UIC 60
1435
208
228
228
20
228
566
110+10
Deck surface
260