Transportation -I

Lecture 10

By
Engr. Muhammad Waseem
Lecturer Department of Civil Engineering
UET, Jalozai

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 Railway Engineering
 The branch of Civil Engineering which deals with the planning,
design, construction, operation and maintenance of the railway
tracks for safe and efficient movement of trains (people and goods)
is called Railway Engineering

 Primary objectives of Railway Engineering are:

 Safety
 Efficiency
 History
 The history of railway is closely linked with the development of
civilization

 As the necessity arose, human beings developed various methods

of transporting goods from one place to another

 In the primitive days goods were carried as head loads or in carts

drawn by men and animal

 Then efforts were made to replace animal power with

mechanical power

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 History
 In 1769, Nicholes Carnot, a Frenchman, carried out the
pioneering work of developing steam energy

 This work had very limited success and it was only in 1804 that
Richard Trevithick designed and constructed a steam locomotive

 This locomotive, however, could be used for traction on roads

only

 The credit of perfecting the design goes to George Stephenson,

who in 1814 developed the first steam locomotive used for
traction on railways
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 History
 The first public railway in the world was opened to traffic on 27th
September 1825 between Stockton and Darlington in the UK

 Simultaneously, other countries in Europe also developed such

railway systems; most introduced trains for carriage of passenger
traffic

 The US operated its first railway line between Mohak and Hudson
in 1833

 The railway line in Germany was operated from Nurenberg to

Furth in 1835
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 History
 The first railway line in India was opened in 1853.
 The first train, consisting of one steam engine and four coaches,
made its maiden trip on 16 April 1853, when it traversed a 21-mile
stretch between Bombay (now Mumbai) and Thane in 1.25 hours.
 It was on 13th May,1861 that first railway line was opened for
public traffic between Karachi City and Kotri, the distance of
105 miles (169km)
 Speed was 12 mph
 Speed is 375 mph

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History

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Development of Rail Transport

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Development of Rail Transport

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Development of Rail Transport

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Development of Rail Transport

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Development of Rail Transport

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Development of Rail Transport

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 Components of Railway track
 An engineered structure consisting of two metal guiding rails on
which vehicles are self propelled or pulled by a locomotive is
called a railway track

 Rails

 Ballast

 Sleepers

 Fastenings

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Components of Railway track

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Components of Railway track

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Cross Section of Railway Track

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Rails

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 Rails
 Rails are the members of the track laid in two parallel lines to
provide a continuous and level surface for the movement of trains

 To be able to withstand stresses, they are made of high carbon

steel

 It has an inverted T or I shaped cross section

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Rails

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 Function of Rails
 Rails provide a continuous and level surface for the movement of
trains.
 Rails provide a pathway which is smooth and has very little friction.
The friction between the steel wheel and the steel rail is about one-fifth
of the friction between the pneumatic tyre and a metaled road.
 Rails serve as a lateral guide for the wheels.
 Rails bear the stresses developed due to vertical loads transmitted to
them through axles and wheels of rolling stock as well as due to braking
and thermal forces.
 Rails carry out the function of transmitting the load to a large area of
the formation through sleepers and the ballast.

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 Types of Rail
 Rails can be divided in to the following three types

 Double headed rails

 Bull headed rails

 Flat footed rails

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 Types of Rail
 Double headed rails
 These were the rails which were used in the beginning, which
were double headed and consists of the following three parts
 Upper table

 Web

 Lower table
 The idea behind using these rails was that when the head was
worn out in course of time, the rail can be inverted and reused
 But this idea soon turned out to be wrong because due to
continuous contact of lower table with the chair made the
surface of lower table rough and hence the smooth running of
the train was impossible
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Types of Rail

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Rail Chair

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 Bull Headed Rails
 This type of rail also consists of three parts;
 The Head

 The Web

 The Foot
 The head is of larger size than foot and the foot is designed
only to hold up properly the wooden keys with which rails are
secured
 Two cast iron chairs are required per each sleeper when these
rails are adopted

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Bull Headed Rails

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 Flat Footed Rails
 These rails were first of all invented by Charles Vignoles in
1836 and hence these rails are also called Vignols rails. It
consist of three parts;
 The Head

 The Web

 The Foot
 The foot is spread out to form a base
 This form of rail has become so much popular that about
90% of railway tracks in the world are laid with this form of
rails

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Flat Footed Rails

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 Flat Footed Rails Advantages
 Flat footed rails has the following advantages
 They do not need any chair and can be directly spiked or
keyed to the sleepers. Thus they are economical
 They are much stiffer both vertically and laterally. The lateral
stiffness is important for curves
 They are less liable to develop kinks and maintain a more
regular top surface than bull headed rails
 They are cheaper than bull headed rails
 The loads from wheels of trains are distributed over large
area which results in greater track stability, reduced
maintenance and less rail failure

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 Railway Track Gauge
 Gauge is defined as the minimum distance between two rails.

OR

 Rail gauge is the distance between the inner sides of the two
parallel rails that make up a single railway line

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 Railway Track Gauge
 Most commonly used railway gauges are:

1. Narrow gauge (2ft and 2.5ft)

2. Meter gauge (1m or 3ft 3/8 inch)

3. Standard gauge (4ft 8.5inch)

4. Broad gauge (5ft and 5ft 6inch)

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 Railway Track Gauge
 Sixty percent of the world's railways use a 4 feet 8.5 inch (1435

mm) gauge, which is known as standard gauge or international

gauge

 Gauges larger than standard gauges are called broad gauge. In

Pakistan most of the railway gauges are broad gauge.

 Narrow gauges have low cost and economical. Mostly used in

mines

 A dual gauge railway has three or four rails positioned so that

trains of two different gauges can use it

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Railway Track Gauge

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Railway Track Gauge

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 Uniformity in Gauges
 Non uniformity causes problems as vehicles from one track could

not run on another track

 Gauges uniformity is necessary for the railway track of a country

 Not adopted in the early ages

 Why ??????

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 Uniformity in Gauges
 No standard in the beginning

 When railroads were originally built, they were built to whatever

size was convenient and affordable at that time.

 In the early days, railroads connected towns and there was not

really a "system" that demanded compatibility.

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 Uniformity in Gauges
 Economy

 Using a gauge narrower than the standard gauge was cheaper

 In many cases, these sorts of railroads were "private" railways

anyway, serving logging camps or other specialized industries, so

they did not need to be compatible with the standard gauge
railroads

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 Uniformity in Gauges
 Keeping the other people out

 In many cases, the different rail gauges were to prevent buy

outs or track-age rights being obtained by competing railroads

 Russia intentionally used an odd gauge so that an invader could

not run supply or troop trains straight across the border

 In WW-II this caused the Nazis (Germany) all kinds of problems

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Dual Gauge Track

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 Loading Gauge
 A loading gauge defines the maximum height and width
for railway vehicles and their loads to ensure safe passage
through bridges, tunnels and other structures.

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 Loading Gauge
 In order to ensure that the wagons are not overloaded, a physical
barrier is made by constructing a structure as per the profile of the
loading gauge.

 The function of this structure is to ensure that the topmost and the
widest portion of the load will clear all structures such as bridges
and tunnels, etc. along the route.

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Loading Gauge

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 Construction Gauge
 The construction gauge is decided by adding the necessary

clearance to the loading gauge so that vehicles can move safely

at the prescribed speed without any infringement. (violation/
breaking)

 The various fixed structures on railway lines such as bridges,

tunnels, and platform sheds are built in accordance with the

construction gauge so that the sides and top remain clear of the
loading gauge.

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Construction Gauge

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Construction Gauge

Is it Safe?

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Standard Rail Section – Weight of Rail
 The rail is designed by its weight per unit length

 In FPS units, it is the weight in lbs. per yard and in metric units it
is in kg per meter

 The weight of a rail and its section is decided taking into

consideration the following
 Maximum permissible load

 Depth of ballast cushion

 Type and spacing of sleepers, etc.

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Standard Rail Section – Weight of Rail

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Standard Rail Section – Length of Rail
 Theoretically, the longer is the rail, the lesser would be the number

of joints and fittings required and the lesser be the cost of

construction and maintenance

 Longer rails are economical and provide smooth and comfortable

rides

 The length of a rail is, however restricted due to the following factors

 Lack of facilities for transport

 Difficulties in manufacturing very long rails

 Heavy internal thermal stresses in long rails

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Standard Rail Section – Length of Rail
 Taking the above factors into consideration, a rail length of 13 m
for Broad gauge and 12 m for Meter and Narrow gauges has
been standardized

 However some countries uses longer rails in their railway track

system

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