Assessment of existing railroad bridges to accommodate a higher speed considering Chinese practices.

Details

• Creators:
  Ma, Z. John ; Clarke, David B.
• Corporate Contributors:
  National University Rail Center (U.S.)
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Railroad bridges
  • High speed track
  • High speed rail
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Corporate Publisher:
  National University Rail Center (U.S.)
• Abstract:
  As the country continues to grow, the USDOT understands that the transportation system will ; continue to evolve to meet the demands of the future. A balanced use of all modes of public ; transportation, for both individuals and freight, will be required to meet the country’s future ; transportation needs. An underutilized mode of public transportation is the nation’s rail system. ; Rail transportation of passengers is safer than highway travel, generates less emissions per unit ; transported than either highway or air, is more energy efficient than any other transportation ; mode, and inherently has a lower transportation cost per unit mile. ; Recently, the USDOT has sponsored the formulation of the National University Rail (NURail) ; Center. The NURail consortium has selected shared rail corridors as the central theme of its ; proposed research program. Currently, the rail systems in the U.S. are designed to support heavy ; freight train traffic. As High-Speed Rail (HSR) becomes a more vital asset to our nation’s ; infrastructure, there are many elements of the existing rail network that need to be tailored to ; address safety concerns as well as the maintenance of dual purpose assets that service both HSR ; passenger traffic and shared revenue service lines. However, development of incremental HSR ; lines in the U.S. poses a number of new challenges related to existing railroad. On the other ; hand, China has gone through similar upgrades and accumulated many experiences. ; 1.2 Objectives and Focus Areas ; The purpose of the tour was to investigate and document the applications and experiences with ; shared rail corridors in China, especially regarding China’s six different rail speed upgrades. ; The team conducted meetings with government agencies, academia, and private sector ; organizations to evaluate the Chinese railroad bridge system and issues identified in China ; when their railroad speed was increased six different times. This will be done so as to compare ; US railroad bridge systems with Chinese railroad bridge systems and to identify the most ; significant technologies for implementation in the United States, and propose strategies to ; accommodate a higher speed for the nation’s shared rail corridors. ; The following activities were undertaken: ; 1. Visited the China Academy of Railway Science and consulted with several experts on the ; general experience
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• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  NURail Project ID: NURail2012-UTK-R01 ; Grant Number: DTRT12-G-UTC18
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/31426/dot_31426_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.10 MB]
• Collection(s):
  US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:8618afc43b9fda4c73cc9d05a25c78aab6c6df89fcdf761ad240318a8206ed55