Considerations of out-of-gauge freight transportation in railway infrastructure development and maintenance projects

Zhang, Y; An, M; Wang, L; Lei, D

Abstract

The demands of railway infrastructure development are increased to meet rail transport requirements, particularly, for those large scale equipment and oversized cargoes that are often beyond railway gauges such as vehicle/infrastructure structure gauges. Railway administrators have to check clearances between out-of-gauge trains carrying with these railway out-of-gauge freights (ROFs) and all of railway infrastructures along their routes, i.e., bridges, tunnels, platforms, signal equipment and over-head power lines to ensure its safety. Therefore, the safety of ROF transportation requirements should be taken into consideration in railway infrastructure development and maintenance projects. This paper presents methods for modelling of ROF loading outline and the minimum infrastructure structure gauges. A railway gauges doublechecking algorithm has also been developed to calculate gap distances between vehicles and infrastructures which can provide useful information for railway designers, engineers and
managers in the design, construction and maintenance of railway infrastructures. A case example of ROF transport routing problem is used to demonstrate the clearance safety requirements. The results show that gap distances between vehicles and infrastructures are major factors that can impact on ROF transportation safety, which should be integrated into the design, construction and maintenance projects of railway infrastructures.

Citation

Zhang, Y., An, M., Wang, L., & Lei, D. (2017, September). Considerations of out-of-gauge freight transportation in railway infrastructure development and maintenance projects. Presented at International Research Conference 2017: Shaping Tomorrow's Built Environment, University of Salford, UK

• Presentation Conference Type: Other
• Conference Name: International Research Conference 2017: Shaping Tomorrow's Built Environment
• Conference Location: University of Salford, UK
• Start Date: Sep 11, 2017
• End Date: Sep 12, 2017
• Publication Date: Oct 12, 2017
• Deposit Date: Nov 12, 2018
• Publicly Available Date: Nov 12, 2018
• Publisher URL: https://usir.salford.ac.uk/44058/
• Additional Information: Event Type : Conference; Funders : National Natural Science Foundation of China;Beijing Jiaotong University State Key Laboratory of Rail Traffic and Control and Safety; Projects : National Key Research and Development Programme;Railway Infrastructure Safety Risk Quantitative Analysis Technology; Grant Number: 2016YFB1200401; Grant Number: RCS2017K001 RCS2016ZT016