Railway Transportation (Engineering Essentials)

Railway transportation refers to the conveyance of passengers or the transfer of goods by means of trains that are designed to run along railroads or railways. Tracks, or railroads, guide the directional motion of rail vehicles. Since these offer lower frictional resistance, they can facilitate passage to longer trains. Most tracks are built with a signalling system which offers safe transit of vehicles. Rail gauge can be standard gauge, broad gauge or narrow gauge. In addition, the tracks are laid in conformation with a loading gauge that determines the maximum height, width and load of a railway vehicle for safe passage through tunnels, bridges and other structures. All vehicles operating on a rail network have gears that are compatible with the track gauge. The different forms of railway locomotives include steam locomotives, electric locomotives, diesel locomotives and high-speed rails. Regardless of whether a train is steam-propelled or electrically-propelled, the propulsion may be provided by individual motors in self-propelled multiple units or by a separate locomotive. This book presents the complex subject of railway transportation in the most comprehensible and easy to understand language. Different approaches, evaluations, methodologies and advanced studies on railway transportation have been included herein. This book will help new researchers by foregrounding their knowledge in this domain.