The success and continued growth of business for the rail industry is vital to infrastructure development. Railtech is one of the major European events that brings together representatives form many of the industry's main innovating companies. By providing an ideal forum for engineers from all disciplines to meet and discuss today's projects and those of the future, it addresses the need for information and technology transfer. The need for railway technology to support and lead the industry in new areas of reliability, comfort, and customer satisfaction is greater than ever. A wide range of topics across the whole field of railway engineering and business development are tackled. One of even proceedings texts from this conference, this volume covers the future of the rail industry.

In late nineteenth-century Mexico the Mexican populace was fascinated with the country's booming railroad network. Newspapers and periodicals were filled with art, poetry, literature, and social commentaries exploring the symbolic power of the railroad. As a symbol of economic, political, and industrial modernization, the locomotive served to demarcate a nation's status in the world. However, the dangers of locomotive travel, complicated by the fact that Mexico's railroads were foreign owned and operated, meant that the railroad could also symbolize disorder, death, and foreign domination.

In "The Civilizing Machine" Michael Matthews explores the ideological and cultural milieu that shaped the Mexican people's understanding of technology. Intrinsically tied to the Porfiriato, the thirty-five-year dictatorship of Gen. Porfirio Diaz, the booming railroad network represented material progress in a country seeking its place in the modern world. Matthews discloses how the railroad's development represented the crowning achievement of the regime and the material incarnation of its mantra, "order and progress." The Porfirian administration evoked the railroad in legitimizing and justifying its own reign, while political opponents employed the same rhetorical themes embodied by the railroads to challenge the manner in which that regime achieved economic development and modernization. As Matthews illustrates, the multiple symbols of the locomotive reflected deepening social divisions and foreshadowed the conflicts that eventually brought about the Mexican Revolution.

Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive documents the role played by mechanical engineers in the development of locomotive design. The steam engine and the mechanical engineering profession both grew directly out of the Industrial Revolution's need for sources of power beyond that of men and animals. Invented in England when coal mining was being developed, the practical steam engine eventually found numerous applications in transportation, especially in railroad technology. J. Parker Lamb traces the evolution of the steam engine from the early 1700s through the early 1800s, when the first locomotives were sent to the United States from England. Lamb then shifts the scene to the development of the American steam locomotive, first by numerous small builders, and later, by the early 20th century, by only three major enterprises and a handful of railroad company shops. Lamb reviews the steady progress of steam locomotive technology through its pinnacle during the 1930s, then discusses the reasons for its subsequent decline. The contributions and role of mechanical engineers in the evolution of locomotive design.

Trains Across the Continent
North American Railroad History
Second Edition
Rudolph Daniels

A wonderfully readable, illustrated guide to the history of railroads in America.

"Trains Across the Continent is everything you need to know about railroad history both educational and enjoyable reading." Dean Bruce, President, Railroad Education Training Association

"Trains Across the Continent should be in every public school library in the country. Quickly and concisely Dr. Daniels leads you through the maze of building, merging, and a myriad of other details necessary to understand modern railroading. Steam, diesel, passenger, and freight are all carefully explained on a national scale rather than railroad specific, making this book even more of a useful tool for the student." Donald D. Snoddy, Historian, Union Pacific Railroad

"Trains Across the Continent" is a truly comprehensive account of how railroads helped shape, and are continuing to shape, the history of North America." Jonathan B. Hanna, Historian, Canadian Pacific Railway

"Nothing but positive comments about it from faculty and students alike.... The industry bible in this area." Phillip B. Cypret, Sacramento City College

"Professor Daniels displays both passion and scholarship in this nicely arranged buffet of subjects both large and minute, important and interesting, serious and fun, to present a delicious overview of railroad history." James D. Porterfield, author of Dining by Rail

"Daniels manages to make brief mention of all major points of North American railroad history... from the workings of a steam locomotive to the dawn of the railroad mega-merger, nearly every conceivable aspect of railroading receives attention.... This volume is a must for those wishing to broaden or hone their knowledge of the birth and evolution of the railroad industry in North America." Rail News

Updated maps, new appendices, a greatly expanded bibliography, detailed discussions of the recent attempted mergers of the CN and BNSF, of the diesel locomotive, and of railroad electrification further round out the usefulness of Trains Across the Continent as the complete and concise introduction to North American railroads.

Rudolph Daniels is Chair of the Behavioral Sciences Department at Western Iowa Tech Community College, where he teaches history and Railroad Operations Technology."

Positive Train Control (PTC) is a communications and signalling system that has been identified by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) as a technology capable of preventing accidents caused by train operator or dispatcher error. PTC is expected to reduce the number of accidents due to excessive speed, conflicting train movements, and engineer failure to obey wayside signals. The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA08) requires implementation of positive train control on railroads which carry passengers or have high-volume freight traffic with toxic or poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous materials. This book provides an overview of the issues and economics for improved rail safety. While PTC promises benefits in terms of safety, its implementation entails substantial costs and presents a variety of other policy-related issues. These include the interoperability of individual railroads' systems, sufficient radio spectrum to support PTC, and the possibility that PTC could be a barrier to market entry.

This is a new biography of two great British engineering pioneers, who did much to develop the world we now live in. George and Robert Stephenson, were at the forefront of early railways and were at the cutting edge of modern engineering history. Industrial historian Anthony Burton looks into these two giants of the late Georgian and early Victorian age, who were responsible for the development of much of the early railway map in both Britain and other parts of the world. The work examines the lives of the two men and their ability to overcome some of the most pressing engineering problems of their time. This is a new work, with newly researched material published here for the first time, which take a fresh look at both pioneering engineers and their achievements.

In this illustrated collection, H. Roger Grant, one of America's leading railroad historians, brings together a rich assortment of personal accounts of train travel in the United States since the dawn of railroading. The twenty-one accounts included here tell of the excitement, the romance, the difficulties, and sometimes the danger of traveling by train. Together they present a lively picture of the great changes that have taken place since the 1830s. Some describe wild rides on high-speed raceways, while others recount arduous trips on rickety branch lines. Rail travel at its most luxurious is recreated--the elegant Pullman sleeping berths, the fine parlor and observation cars--as are some of the more grim journeys of troops, itinerant workers, and prisoners of war in squalid boxcars. Binding these accounts together is an enduring fascination with the rails.

One of America's foremost civil engineers of the past 150 years, John Frank Stevens was a railway reconnaissance and location engineer whose reputation was made on the Canadian Pacific and Great Northern lines. Self-taught and driven by a bulldog tenacity of purpose, he was hired by Theodore Roosevelt as chief engineer of the Panama Canal, creating a technical achievement far ahead of its time. Stevens also served for more than five years as the head of the US Advisory Commission of Railway Experts to Russia and as a consultant who contributed to many engineering feats, including the control of the Mississippi River after the disastrous floods of 1927 and construction of the Boulder (Hoover) Dam. Drawing on Stevens s surviving personal papers and materials from projects with which he was associated, Clifford Foust offers an illuminating look into the life of an accomplished civil engineer."

This peer-reviewed 3-volume set comprises the contributions to the 11th International Conference on Bearing Capacity of Roads, Railways and Airfields (2022). In 3 volumes it unveils state-of-the-art information and research on the latest policies, traffic loading measurements, in-situ measurements and condition surveys, functional testing, deflection measurement evaluation, structural performance prediction for pavements and tracks, new construction and rehabilitation design systems, frost affected areas, drainage and environmental effects, reinforcement, traditional and recycled materials, full scale testing and on case histories of road, railways and airfields. This edited work is intended for a global audience of road, railway and airfield engineers, researchers and consultants, as well as building and maintenance companies looking to further upgrade their practices in the field.

The Rail Safety Improvement Act of 2008 (RSIA08) requires implementation of positive train control (PTC) on railroads which carry passengers or have high-volume freight traffic with toxic- or poisonous-by-inhalation hazardous materials. Chapters 1 and 2 discuss passenger railroads' PTC progress and FRA's steps to assist them, and how passenger railroads and FRA plan to approach the 2018 and 2020 deadlines. Chapter 3 reports on the FRA's passenger equipment safety standards using a performance-based approach to adopt new and modified requirements governing the construction of conventional and high-speed passenger rail equipment. Chapter 4 examines key characteristics of FRA's and FTA's rail safety oversight programs and strengths and limitations of FRA's and FTA's rail safety oversight programs. Crashes at highway-rail grade crossings are one of the leading causes of railroad-related deaths. Chapter 5 examines the focus of FRA's grade-crossing-safety research, how states select and implement grade-crossing projects and what data are available from FRA to inform their decisions, and the challenges states reported in implementing and assessing projects and the extent to which FHWA assesses the program's effectiveness. When a train is not moving but its engines are running, it can present risks and disruptions for the surrounding community as reported in chapter 6. Railroad bridges carry heavy and potentially dangerous loads over busy roadways and important waterways. Many of these bridges are a century old or more. However, unlike road bridges, which are the responsibility of public entities, railroad bridges are the responsibility of the private railroad companies that own or operate them. Congress has acted in recent years to improve oversight of railroad bridge safety, but incidents have prompted concerns about whether enough is being done to protect the public as discussed in chapter 7. Train derailments or collisions are often well-publicized events and receive significant attention from policymakers seeking to reduce their reoccurrence. Less attention has been devoted to trespassing, although it is a much greater cause of rail-related fatalities than derailments and collisions combined. As reported in chapter 8, over three-fifths of deaths in rail incidents have been pedestrian trespassers, and vehicle-train accidents at railroad grade crossings account for nearly one-third Congress created the Railroad Rehabilitation and Improvement Financing (RRIF) program to offer long-term, low-cost loans to railroad operators, with particular attention to small freight railroads, to help them finance improvements to infrastructure and investments in equipment. This program is the focus of chapter 9. Chapter 10 examines how WMATA spent its capital funds from fiscal years 2011 through 2017, how WMATA's new capital planning process addresses weaknesses it identified in the prior process, and WMATA's progress toward its track preventive maintenance program's goals and how the program aligns with leading program management practices.

Railway expansion was symbolic of modernization in the late 19th century, and Britain, Germany and France built railways at enormous speed and reaped great commercial benefits. In the Middle East, railways were no less important and the Ottoman Empire's Hejaz Railway was the first great industrial project of the 20th century. A route running from Damascus to Mecca, it was longer than the line from Berlin to Baghdad and was designed to function as the artery of the Arab world - linking Constantinople to Arabia. Built by German engineers, and instituted by Sultan Abdul Hamid II, the railway was financially crippling for the Ottoman state and the its eventual stoppage 250 miles short of Mecca (the railway ended in Medina) was symbolic of the Ottoman Empire's crumbling economic and diplomatic fortunes. This is the first book in English on the subject, and is essential reading for those interested in Industrial History, Ottoman Studies and the geopolitics of the Middle East before World War I.

A standard track gauge - the distance between the two rails - enables connecting railway lines to exchange traffic. But despite the benefits of standardization, early North American railways used six different gauges extensively, and even today breaks of gauges at national borders and within such countries as India and Australia are expensive burdens on commerce. In "Tracks across Continents, Paths through History", Douglas J. Puffert offers a global history of railway track gauges, examining early choices and the dynamic process of diversity and standardization that resulted. Drawing on the economic theory of path dependence, and grounded in economic, technical, and institutional realities, this innovative volume traces how early historical events, and even idiosyncratic personalities, have affected choices of gauges ever since, despite changing technology and understandings of which gauges are optimal. Puffert also uses this history to develop new insights in the theory of path dependence. "Tracks across Continents, Paths through History" will be essential reading for anyone interested in how history and economics inform each other.

The diesel locomotive sent shock waves through rigid corporate cultures and staid government regulators. For some, the new technology promised to be a source of enormous profits; for others, the railroad industry seemed a threat to their very livelihoods. Evolution of the American Diesel Locomotive introduces the reader to the important technological advances that gave rise to diesel engines, examining not only their impact on locomotive design, but also their impact on the economic and social landscapes. J. Parker Lamb describes the development of these technologies, allowing the reader to fully understand how they were integrated and formed a commercially successful locomotive. Like its companion volume, Perfecting the American Steam Locomotive (IUP, 2003), this book emphasizes the role of the leading engineers whose innovations paved the way for critical breakthroughs. Rail fans will appreciate this authoritative work.

This book presents a look at one of the first major railway disasters in Britain, the fall of the Dee bridge in May 1847, which occurred just outside Chester with the loss of five lives. The main line from Holyhead to Chester had only been opened six months before, and the chief engineer Robert Stephenson was slated nationally (almost being accused of manslaughter) as his cast-iron bridge had failed so catastrophically. Luckily, only a local train was passing and so few lives were lost. Full of detailed technical insight and illustrated with a wealth of contemporary material, this informative book will be of great use for engineering students and historians, as the Dee bridge is an often cited case study of bridge failure along with the Tay and Tacoma Narrows bridges. It will also appeal to interested locals, and railway enthusiasts.

When the "Railway Magazine" of January 2000 published the results of its Millennium Poll, Sir Vincent Raven gained a 42nd place, along with Thomas Newcomen and Arthur Peppercorn. This is the biography of this engineer, illustrated with contemporary archive photographs, portraits and ephemera.

Electric Railways 1880-1990 explores the history of the integration of both electric and diesel-electric railway systems and identifies the crucial role that diesel-electric traction played in the development of wireless electrification. The evolution of electrical technology and the modern railway produced innovations in engineering that were integral to the development of traction, power and signalling systems. This book presents a thorough survey of electric railway development from the earliest days pf the London Underground to modern electrified main line trains. The distinction between 'enforced electrification' and 'economic electrification' is also discussed and the pioneering role of J.J. Heilmann assessed. Developed from many years of research into railway engineering, topics covered include signalling and communications, power supplies, and a detailed survey of traction systems, both AC and DC. The introduction first of mercury arc rectifiers, and later of power semiconductor controls, is also discussed in detail. The author has a long-standing interest in engineering history and has written many papers on aspects of railway technology. This book will be of particular interest to scientists and historians interested in the development of electric railways.

This comprehensive history of North American railroad electrification has been out of print for many years. Now, Indiana University Press is proud to announce its return in an new, updated second edition.

For most of the first half of the 20th century the United States led the way in railroad electrification. Before the outbreak of World War II, the country had some 2,400 route-miles and more than 6,300 track-miles operating under electric power, far more than any other nation and more than 20 percent of the world s total. In almost every instance, electrification was a huge success. Running times were reduced. Tonnage capacities were increased. Fuel and maintenance costs were lowered, and the service lives of electric locomotives promised to be twice as long as those of steam locomotives. Yet despite its many triumphs, electrification of U.S. railroads failed to achieve the wide application that once was so confidently predicted. By the 1970s, it was the Soviet Union, with almost 22,000 electrified route-miles, that led the way, and the U.S. had declined to 17th place.

Today, electric operation of U.S. railroads is back in the limelight. The federally funded Northeast Corridor Improvement Program has provided an expanded Northeast Corridor electrification, with high-speed trains that are giving the fastest rail passenger service ever seen in North America, while still other high-speed corridors are planned for other parts of the country. And with U.S. rail freight tonnage at its highest levels in history, the ability of electric locomotives to expand capacity promises to bring renewed consideration of freight railroad electrification.

Middleton begins his ambitious chronicle of the ups and downs of railway electrification with the history of its early days, and brings it right up to the present which is surely not the end of this complex and mercurial story."

This book describes and illustrates all the rolling stock commonly used by any American railroad, including the 150 different types of locomotive. The renowned Peterson Identification System pinpoints the key field marks that distinguish one railroad car from another. The guide also lists the 840 different American railroads.

In late nineteenth and early twentieth century Britain, there was widespread fascination with the technological transformations wrought by modernity. Films, newspapers and literature told astonishing stories about technology, such as locomotives breaking speed records and moving images seemingly springing into life onscreen. And, whether in films about train travel, or in newspaper articles about movie theatres on trains, stories about the convergence of the railway and cinema were especially prominent. Together, the two technologies radically transformed how people interacted with the world around them, and became crucial to how British media reflected the nation's modernity and changing role within the empire. Rebecca Harrison draws on archival sources and an extensive corpus of films to trace the intertwined histories of the train and the screen for the first time. In doing so, she presents a new and illuminating material and cultural history of the period, and demonstrates the myriad ways railways and cinema coalesced to transform the population's everyday life. With examples taken from more than 240 newsreels and 40 feature-length films, From Steam to Screen is essential reading for students and researchers working on film studies and British history at the turn of the century and beyond.

With rapid population explosion, improving rail transit speed and capacity is strongly desirable around the world. Communication-based train control (CBTC) is an automated train control system using high capacity bidirectional train-ground communications to ensure the safe operation of rail vehicles. This book presents the latest advances in CBTC research. The contributed chapters from leading experts in the field cover different aspects of modelling, analysis, design, testing, management, deployment, and optimization of CBTC systems. Advances in Communications-Based Train Control Systems begins with the background and evolution of train signaling/train control systems. It introduces the main features and architecture of CBTC systems and describes current challenges and successful implementations around the world. Subsequent contributed chapters discuss such key research areas as Nondestructive testing techniques that can be employed to inspect rails and fastening parts New wireless channel modelling techniques for underground tunnels and viaducts Advanced wireless communication systems to improve CBTC communication availability Schemes to integrate train control and train-ground communications by modelling the control system of a group of trains in CBTC as a networked control system Use of cognitive control to improve train control performance, considering both train-ground communication and train control The book includes many supporting illustrations and tables along with a valuable set of references at the end of each chapter. With this book, researchers and practitioners will be well-equipped to advance the research and development in this important field.

An ex-railwayman's recollections of working the footplate on fast express steam trains in the late 1940s and through the '50s

Fast train fireman Ken Issitt worked on the footplate from the late 1940s to 1960, experiencing firing some of the greatest locomotives from the Flying Scotsman to Coltimore and Blink Bonney. The work was hard and conditions were tough but little did he know at the time that he was experiencing the last years of steam. He would never have imagined the romantic associations the period evokes today. Through a number of short accounts the past comes vividly to life, via stories about train crashes, peasoup fogs, and fires going out. From the beginning of a shift, donning overalls and making up a packing, and from shunting in the marshalling yard to flying along with an express train at 80mph. Ken Issitt describes what life on the footplate was like across the last years of steam, his tales beautifully brought to life by Chris Bates's charming pen and ink drawings as well as photographs.

The dynamic behaviour of bridges strongly affects the infrastructure system of high-speed railways, and is a crucial factor in safety issues and passenger comfort. Dynamics of High-Speed Railway Bridges covers the latest research in this field, including:

a " Recently developed dynamic analysis techniques;

a " Train excitations;

a " Design issues for high-speed railway bridges

a " Fatigue conduct of viaducts and large span bridges;

a " Bridge dynamic behaviour;

a " Case studies.

Dynamics of High-Speed Railway Bridges will be invaluable to professionals, scientists, public institutions and students involved in the design, construction and maintenance of high-speed railway bridges.