Understanding track engineering

The role track engineering plays in ensuring safe, efficient rail transport is invisible to rail users – and that’s how it should be. Track Engineers need a wide variety of skills and comprehensive knowledge of this complex subject to perform at their best, delivering safe and efficient track infrastructure. This book is essential reading for all track engineers covering, as it does, the whole spectrum of track engineering practice. 'Understanding Track Engineering' starts with the background to track engineering and its place in the railway engineering system. There is then comprehensive coverage of track components; rails, sleepers and fastenings. The book moves on to the design of railway layouts in plain line and switches & crossings, dealing with geometric principles and their practical application. The support provided by the ballast and earthworks is covered next, followed by off-track management of the lineside. These elements of track engineering are vital to safe and efficient operation but can be overlooked by inexperienced engineers, hence their inclusion in this textbook. Maintenance of the track and its geometry is covered in broad terms as an introduction to the subject. construction, again to give the reader an introduction to the fundamentals of modern railway practices in these two key areas.