Chapter 1

Introduction to
Railway Engineering

By Gidena H. (MSc) 1
 1.1 Railway Transport system
Definition : A railroad consists of two steel rails
which are held a fixed distance apart
Rail transport refers to the on a roadbed. Vehicles, guided and
land transport of people supported by flanged steel wheels
or goods along guided and connected into trains, are
propelled as a means of
paths called railways. A transportation.
railway consists of two
parallel rail tracks at a
fixed distance (gauge)
apart, usually made of
steel and mounted upon
cross beams called ties or
sleepers”

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 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

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 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, sleeping and
entertainment
 High degree of automation and management

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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

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 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

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 History of Ethiopian railway

2007-
National
1906- Railway Dev
firm went launched by
1897- bankrupt 1917- 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

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 The legacy of the old 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

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 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)

• 34km of Fully electrified LRT for

Addis Ababa
•Standard Gauge (1.435 meters) and
double track for the whole route
•Capacity: 80,000 PPH
(Passenger/hr)
• Headway: 6min with a potential of
reducing to 90secs
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•Passenger-km based fare system
Regional integration in Africa…

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Progress to date…

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 1.3 Components of Railway
Rolling Stock Permanent Infrastructure

Power Supply
Signal and Communication

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 Components…
• 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.
• For spanning rivers or gorges, bridges or
culverts shall be built.
• For pass through mountains, mountains shall
be excavated to construct tunnels.

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 Cont’d
• 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.

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 Major components…

Alignment
Track
Tunnel
Bridge

Station

Earth Work

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 What types of Civil Works?
Design

Construction

Operation and
maintenance
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 1.4 General principle for railway construction
and development
• Design year of railway construction
• Short term: The tenth year after delivery for operation
• Long term: The twentieth year after delivery for operation

N.B:- Traffic volumes in short term and long term are both forecasted.

→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

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 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.

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 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 construction.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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.

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 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

• These further classified in to seven grades:

 High speed line
 Rapid speed line
 Classes Ⅰ~Ⅳ
 Heavy haul railway

THE END

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