Aspects of design and calculation of a railway track intended for dedicated passenger lines

Abstract

The article considers issues of application of dedicated passenger lines for intertown and interregional transportation on the railways of the Russian Federation, which in the future will accelerate passenger traffic due to changes in transportation technology, increase the carrying and throughput capacity of railways, reduce construction costs and current maintenance, and optimize the need for infrastructure development. The structures of the track superstructure used for the transportation process at the present time were developed and implemented taking into account the mixed traffic — passenger and freight. Growth of axle loads in freight traffic, as well as the length of trains, presupposes the strengthening (weighting) of the standard structures of the railway track to possibly ensure the guaranteed safe passage of more than 1 billion gross tonnage. At the same time, exclusively for passenger traffic, the typical design of the railway track is redundant and can be optimized in terms of reducing the materials of the track superstructure with a simultaneous change in the configuration of repair schemes and current maintenance conditions. The article presents an assessing the possibility of using a “passenger” track structure on dedicated passenger lines for intertown and interregional transportation according to the criteria of the allowable margin of safety in the environment of fnite element analysis — the most progressive method for calculating structures undergoing complex loading. The article presents the results of calculations of the stress-strain state of a railway track of various confgurations, including promising lightweight versions with R50 rails and reinforced concrete sleepers with under sleeper pads. Based on the calculations performed, recommendations are given for the areas of application of the considered track confgurations from the point of view of permissible stresses in its elements.