One sleeper vs many – you will never guess which is stronger!

An interesting research shows a comparison between the lateral resistance tests undertaken on single sleeper and tests on multiple sleepers.
The results for single sleeper tests show a huge difference between the more complex shaped sleeper and the normal box shape (up to 60% increase in lateral resistance).
But reveals also something else ..

Measuring the track radius in degrees Celsius

On the shoulders of CWR giants In 1994 UIC (the International Union of Railways) and ERRI (the European Railway Research Institute) set up a committee of specialists – D202 – to develop an international standard code for laying and maintenance of continuous welded rail track. Various research institutions and national railway administrations provided a complex…

When is the cant negative in LandXML?

Motto: “I don’t see the code anymore. All I see is blonde, brunette, redhead, negative, adverse.” Cypher Disclaimer: This is not a design guidance. Don’t believe everything you read online. LandXML? LandXML is a non-proprietary data standard on the Extensible Markup Language (XML) format, developed for engineering data exchange. A LandXML file can contain civil and survey…

Hallade’s broken clothoid

I mentioned in a previous article, The Cubic Parabola – a complicated simplification, that the curvature diagram of the Cubic Parabola increases linearly up to a peak point and then drops down. Only that first section of the parabolic curve can be used as an alignment transition. The curvature diagram of the Clothoid is however…