Mixed Freight and Higher-Speed Passenger Trains: Framework for Superelevation Design

Details

• Creators:
  Dick, Tyler C ; Ruppert, Conrad
• Corporate Creators:
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Railroad Policy and Development ; United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration. Office of Research, Development and Technology
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Superelevation
  • High speed rail
  • Transportation operations
  • Freight and passenger services freight operations
  • passenger operations
• Publication/ Report Number:
  DOT/FRA/ORD-19/42
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  United States
• Edition:
  Technical Report September 2015 – May 2016
• Contracting Officer:
  Stuart, Cameron
• Corporate Publisher:
  United States. Department of Transportation. Federal Railroad Administration
• Abstract:
  As the demand for higher-speed passenger trains increases, the disparity between freight and passenger operations also increases. On mixed-use rail corridors, the result is a bi-modal distribution of train speeds that complicates design of curve superelevation. To aid in making informed curve superelevation decisions on mixed-use rail corridors, this report synthesizes industry knowledge and tools used to evaluate curve superelevation. This report develops the superelevation bandwidth concept into a framework to optimize superelevation on mixed-use corridors. The framework is presented as both a graphical approach and a mathematical model that can be applied to select superelevation design parameters for multiple curves on a rail corridor. Five case studies illustrating typical design situations encountered in the development of mixed-use corridors are highlighted. Each case study demonstrates how the selection of actual superelevation results in trade-offs between the operation of slower trains with overbalance and imposing curve speed restrictions on faster trains.
• Format:
  PDF
• Funding:
  DTFR53-15-C-00023
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/55842/dot_55842_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 2.41 MB]
• Collection(s):
  Federal Railroad Administration
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:b1b5c512cb6c9c9e457d395f21c94edc1eaf0c92ca94467f1b15ca19d1d2ddb71831e3d34abe0124b6a4c348524f9428be7268d30726202409cf195f0823f599