Local Railway Research Articles

Application of a Quantitative Risk-Based Decision Tool for Local Railway Level Crossing Management

Railway level crossings pose risks to both train passengers and road users, worsened by the complex interaction between rail and road traffic, particularly on local railways. This study introduces a Risk Management (RM) framework designed to enhance safety at level crossings on local railways by providing a decision-support tool. By individually assessing risk factors, the framework allows for a precise evaluation of the current risk levels in terms of both Cumulated and Individual Risk levels, Individual Risk, and the impacts of potential modifications. The framework allows the quantitative assessment of risk and resource optimization, enabling infrastructure managers to identify high-risk crossings and select the most effective safety interventions. The framework was applied to 96 level crossings on an Italian local railway line, demonstrating its ability to support decision-making for targeted interventions as well as broader network-level actions, significantly improving system safety.

Freight train scheduling for industrial lines with multiple railway undertakings

With the liberalisation of the rail freight market, the number of railway undertakings in operation is increasing. Trains run by several railway undertakings (RUs) converge at industrial lines leading up to terminals. Here, uncoordinated interaction between mainline RUs and limited infrastructure capacity leads to bottlenecks, which reduces resource utilisation of railway undertakings. Outsourcing last-mile operations to an independent local railway undertaking can improve capacity utilisation and decrease the time engines of mainline engines spend within the considered network. In this paper, we propose the Industrial Line Scheduling Problem with multiple RU, a resource scheduling model for freight trains at industrial lines. The aim is to minimise unproductive time of mainline engines and the number of deployed local engines. The results show that the potential savings per employed local engine are highly dependent the timetables of inbound and outbound trains within the network, the dwell time of railcars and on the degree of local railway undertaking involvement.

Multi-modal battery-operated trains on partially electrified lines: A case study on some regional lines in Italy

A full electrification of many local railway lines is often not feasible or sustainable in terms of construction and maintenance costs or alternatively for the presence of additional constraints and limitations deriving from environmental or infrastructural limitations. Battery Operated Powertrains or other kind of hybrid solutions are currently proposed as sustainable alternatives to internal combustion engines for the propulsion of rolling stock on non-electrified lines. In this work, the authors propose the adoption of a partial electrification of lines to assure higher performances and reliability of battery-operated rolling stock designed to be recharged and feed using standard technologies such as pantographs gathering power from suspended catenaries. This innovative solution is designed for a benchmark test vehicle inspired from an existing one and simulated considering some possible scenario of application corresponding to some existing railway lines in Italy.

Strength criterion of ice-rich moraine soil considering the ice form and temperature based on thermal-mechanical triaxial tests

Moraine soils are widely distributed in southeast Tibet of China, which poses a serious threat to local railway construction. The mechanical behavior of moraine soil containing ice in cold regions is difficult to capture under the joint action of stress conditions and temperature. To study the strength characteristics of ice-rich moraine soil, a total of 112 groups of thermal-mechanical triaxial tests under different ice forms, ice contents, and temperature conditions are carried out. The test results show that the mechanical properties of moraine soil with crushed ice and block ice are different, showing the characteristics of strain hardening and strain softening, respectively. Overall, the peak strength of moraine soil with block ice is greater than that of crushed ice. The cohesion and internal friction angle of moraine soil decreases with the temperature rise. With the increase of ice content, the peak strength of moraine soil with block ice increases, while that of crushed ice shows the opposite trend. In addition, the increase of ice content increases the cohesion of moraine soil with block ice, but there is a threshold value of ice content (25%) for moraine soil with crushed ice, which leads to the maximum cohesion at this time. Based on the test results, a unified function is proposed to describe the quantitative relationship between the strength parameters of ice-rich moraine soil, temperature, and ice content. Finally, to explore the nonlinear strength behavior of moraine soil, a binary-medium model is introduced to describe its stress-strain relationship, and the evolution of the main parameters in the model is analyzed. Comparing theoretical and experimental results demonstrates that the established model is of satisfactory applicability to simulate the mechanical behavior of moraine soil with different ice forms.

Noticing houses: An analysis of the vernacular landscape of south Marrickville and Tempe, Sydney, Australia

ABSTRACT Residential suburbs are not deserts of signage. Alongside the signs imposed by local governments to aid citizens navigate their neighborhoods, there are signs assigned by property owners. These include house numbers and names as well as various forms of semiotic control. Often multi-modal in format, they are designed to deter strangers from violating properties, depositing unwanted advertising and so on. Yet much of this signage in the residential parts of suburbia has escaped scholarly examination. This paper, which employs a geosemiotic approach to analyze the linguistic landscape of south Marrickville and Tempe, redresses this oversight. It explores both the linguistic landscape’s content and its material expression. While much of its constituent signage “gate keeps” traffic and pedestrians, some blandish same with radical politics, front of house as it were. Of particular interest are the environs of the local railway station, which for a time were a magnet for an insurrectionist geosemiotic.

Transition of Landscape in Areas along Local Railway

Transition of Landscape in Areas along Local Railway

Synergic Design and Simulation of Battery-Operated Trains on Partially Electrified Lines: A Case Study regarding the Firenze Faenza Line

A full electrification of many local railway lines is often not feasible or sustainable in terms of construction and maintenance costs or alternatively for the presence of additional constraints and limitations deriving from environmental or infrastructural limitations. Battery Operated or other kind of hybrid solutions powertrains are currently proposed as sustainable alternatives to Internal combustion engines for the propulsion of rolling stock on not electrified lines. In this work, authors propose the adoption of a partial electrification of lines to assure higher performances and reliability of battery-operated rolling stock designed to be recharged and feed using standard technologies such as pantographs gathering power from suspended catenaries. This innovative solution is designed and sized for a vehicle inspired from an existing one and simulated for two different existing lines, also proposing an optimal distribution of electrified sections dedicated to train recharge. This Case Study is simulated considering some possible applications to some existing railway lines in Italy.

Improving the local development: the stakeholders’ point of view on Italian railway tourism

ABSTRACT Railway tourism has been developed in several European countries. Although Italy has an important national railway heritage, local railway tourism is still in an early development stage. In 2021, research was conducted by the Department of Management of the University of Turin, which involved the key stakeholders in railway tourism, in order to explore and define strategies for further development. A mixed-method approach was used in defining the process in three stages: a focus group of experts to design a dedicated questionnaire, the Delphi method to conduct individual stakeholder interviews, and the Nominal Group Technique (NGT) for the presentation of survey results, and identification of stakeholders’ priorities. The results identified the key elements of the market and established players in the Italian railway tourism supply chain to implement operational strategies to develop this form of tourism, and in line with the interest of the younger generation. Italian railway tourism has considerable potential due to the cultural, historical, and scenic heritage of the railway lines which can be enhanced by operational organisations. Moreover, this tourism activity is a useful tool for economies and operators in the local areas.

‘Top-Down’ or ‘Bottom-Up’ Modernisation: Local Railway Entrepreneurs in the Ottoman Empire in the Second Half of the 19th Century

Abstract In 1857 a local group headed by Bulgarian merchants from the town of Şumnu applied for the Rusçuk and Varna railway concession, in what was one of the earliest attempts by Ottoman subjects to carry out such a capitalist undertaking. Since their application was officially and unofficially supported by the Sublime Porte, this article discusses the genesis and unfolding of this local project as one which resulted both from a ‘top-down’ initiative instigated by the Ottoman government and a ‘bottom-up’ enterprise influenced by new trends in Ottoman economic life.

A methodology for introducing the impact of risk analysis in local railways improvements decisions

Maintaining a high-quality service at acceptable safety level is very demanding on resources for railway sector. This is even more true for local railways, where economical and organizational resources incur various limitations if compared to the case of the national network. Furthermore, due to the significant differences not only in management but also in infrastructural characteristics, the application of criteria and standards born and commonly used in the environment of national railways to local ones leads to a non-optimal use of resources and an overall reduction in the quality of service. Another limit that local railways have to face in order to standardize safety efficiency to the national network is linked to accident and Hazardous Events data occurring in the system, that could be not sufficient to define reliable forecasting models. In order to cope with all of those constraint and to optimize management strategies for local railways, this work provides a framework of a quantitative risk management methodology able support the Infrastructure Manager in decision-making process for asset development. The proposed methodology allows to quantitatively estimate the impact on risk of changes to the system and management choices, prioritizing and optimizing the intervention strategies on the system. To overcome the problems related to the lack of accidental data, the methodology allows to broad the accidental database to networks similar to the one analysed, calibrating the information according to the differences in terms of safety equipment between the systems. Moreover, through the analysis of all factors influencing the frequency and consequences of accidents and their interrelationships, the methodology provides a complete view on the level of risk associated with all parts of the system, providing powerful support for development choices and management optimization even to heterogeneous systems such as local railways.

ДИНАМИКА ЧИСЛЕННОСТИ ЖЕЛЕЗНОДОРОЖНИЦ РОССИЙСКОЙ ИМПЕРИИ В ГОДЫ ПЕРВОЙ МИРОВОЙ ВОЙНЫ

The article shows the dynamics of the number of women working on the Russian Empire’s railways during the First World War. The article provides comparative statistics on the number, percentage and positions occupied by women on the railways before the war (1913) and on the front-line and home front railways during the war (1914–1917), based on the analysis of records of civil and military authorities. The author has established that the initial phase of changes in the personnel policy of the Ministry of Railways and local railway administrations in favour of recruiting more women to railway service dates back to the second half of 1915. The changes in personnel policy were primarily due to the mobilisation of reserve soldiers, many of whom had previously worked on the railways. Initially seen by the Ministry of Railways as a temporary and forced measure, the trend of replacing the men who had gone to the front by women gained momentum in 1916, as a result of which the scope of women’s work in the railway industry was constantly expanding. The article draws a conclusion about the all-Russian trend of gradual expansion of the sphere of women’s labour on the railways, demonstrates the growth of the absolute number of female railway workers, which was conditioned by the needs of military and civil authorities during the First World War.

Working with ‘The Passionate Few’: the Indirect Benefits of Actor Engagement in Mundane Service Settings

The engagement concept has grown in importance in recent years with firms recognizing and seeking to leverage the latent potential within their customers and finding innovative ways to engage them. However, engagement has, to date, been explored within high contact service settings where benefits are largely dyadic (between firm and customer) or shared (within the customer community). This study contributes to literature on engagement by assessing the potential for engagement in low contact settings, between a firm and minority customer groups to have positive indirect effects on other ‘unengaged’ customers. To do so, we use multi-level modeling within a public transport setting where a firm has invited local community members to ‘adopt’ their local railway stations. We propose that neither a small number of passionate customers, nor low contact, ‘mundane’ service settings, should be an impediment to firms benefiting from engagement.

Major and local railways in Bukovina before World War I

The article analyzes the history of railway transport in Bukovina. Railway connections have played and continue to play an important role in the social and economic development of the region. Railway connections created new opportunities for the organization of cost-effective passenger and cargo transport. Railway lines organically combined passenger needs with the region’s economic interests. Railway transport also facilitated the general mobilization in the country on the eve of World War I. The study explores the evolution of major and local railways in Bukovina. The strategic importance of the network of major and local railways for the region’s development and its positive impact on all areas of life in Bukovina were analyzed. Special emphasis was placed on the strategic importance of Bukovina’s railways in the overall railway system of the Habsburg Empire. The study demonstrated that on the eve of the World War I at the beginning of the 20th century, Bukovina had numerous connections to external railways and played an important role in Austria-Hungary’s railway system. The railway system contributed to Bukovina’s status as a trade hub that exchanged goods with other districts in the empire as well as foreign partners.

Finite-Time Control for Discrete-Time Positive Systems Subject to Event-Triggered Scheme and Markov Jump Parameters

This brief investigates the finite-time control problem for discrete-time positive systems subject to event-triggered scheme and Markov jump parameters. Switching transition probability is used to extend the fixed transition probability, which is more suitable to describe the performance of Markov jump systems (MJSs). On the basis of the 1-norm, a developed event-triggered scheme is proposed to be associated with the sample signal and the actual signal. Furthermore, a linear Lyapunov function and an average dwell time approach are adopted to obtain sufficient conditions for guaranteeing stochastic finite-time stability of the underlying systems. Additionally, a matrix decomposition strategy is constructed to design a finite-time event-triggered control law such that the corresponding MJSs are positive and stochastically finite-time bounded. All conditions are proposed on the basis of linear programming. Finally, a local railway transportation model is provided to verify the practicability of the strategy.

Multimodal Access to Minor Places in Heritage-Rich Landscapes: GIS Mapping to Define Slow-Tourism Routes from the Stations in the Railway Networks in-between Turin and Milan

The extraordinary richness of the natural and built heritage, widespread in the landscape which surrounds infrastructures, allows searching for new ways to access the places in a more sustainable way, by exploiting multimodal accessibility between train and bike. The current research shows how the territories in-between the cities of Turin and Milan, characterized by a complex historical landscape, could be enhanced in terms of sustainable tourism by exploiting the potential of the existing railway network and the widespread network of local roads, which make many unique places in these territories easily accessible. A GIS method based on a quantitative approach has been defined, to perform the spatial analysis by mapping the most significant nodes in the railway network, in the most attractive heritage areas localized in the surrounding landscape of infrastructures, to trace slow-tourism routes which can be used both by inhabitants and tourists to move across places in a more sustainable way. The research finds the most attractive heritage areas in the surroundings of local railways, and maps slow-tourism routes that connect local railway stations to surrounding heritage, within 15 min of cycling. The GIS-based method can support decision makers in the definition of new territorial development strategies, with the aim of enhancing the livelihood of the inner and fragile areas of the country that are crossed by the railways.

Railway degradation behaviour analysis in narrow-gauge railways: A local-railway case study

An efficient maintenance strategy is a key factor to ensure acceptable safety levels and manage the overall costs of a railway network. So far, research focused mainly on regional and high-speed rail networks, causing a knowledge and regulation gap between standard and narrow-gauge railways networks. These networks, like the local or isolated railways, have peculiar geometric and operational characteristics that play a key role on track geometry quality degradation process. For this reason, the maintenance knowledge gained in the context of standard railways when applied to systems such as narrow-gauge railways could lead to non-optimized use of the limited resources available. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyse how the track geometry quality degradation behaviour is influenced by the key characteristics of narrow-gauge railways through the analysis of the track geometry data of an Italian local railway, laying the foundation for optimized maintenance strategies for these systems.

Camminare come progetto: coreografie di paesaggio attraverso ferrovie dismesse


 
 
 
 Observing the evolution of the railway network, in Italy, the presence of eight thousand abandoned kilometers undermines the ways of crossing and the forms of perception that have consolidated over time around a track. Overcoming the opposition between the speed of the train and the slower one of man – and capturing the intuition of Dixon Hunt in the essay Lordship of the feet – walking is a practice to experiment different ways of experiencing an open space as a railway route. The essay interprets the footprints left by six landscape architects, exploring a track with the perception of their own body to suggest more than one movement in the next drawing, as an opportunity to reflect on the role that can be attributed to the path.
 Encountering the contemporary culture of the landscape project, through an interview with the subjects involved, the journey allows us to begin dialoguing with a local railway heritage, overcoming the perspective of a mono-functional use or reuse, to follow the trajectory of a recovery project as choreography of the crossed landscape.
 
 
 

Study of development of regional railway system in Bukovyna

The article is devoted to the study, generalization and systematization of scientific knowledge about the history of the establishment, development and operation of the regional railway system in Bukovyna in the second half of XIX – early XX centuries. The authors attempted to analyze the process of creation and operation of railways in Bukovyna during the reign of the Austro-Hungarian Empire based on a wide range of previously unpublished archival documents, periodicals, statistical literature and memoirs. The article studies the development of organizational bases for the construction of railways, the activity of the communication network management, lists a whole range of requirements and tasks set for railway transport in Bukovyna, the progress of their implementation, considers successes and difficulties in this work. It is determined that private railways, as important transport arteries of Bukovyna, were of national importance and played a significant role in the transport system of Austria-Hungarian Empire. They served the leading economic districts of Bukovyna, acting as an integral part of production in each of them. In other words, they were used for development of local, intersectoral and interregional relations. Regional railways, first of all, played an important role in the social and economic life of Bukovyna region. In most cases, they did not carry the strategic cargo, but made it possible to connect the most remote corners of separate areas of the region into a single whole. In practice, local railways were a significant addition to the main central line, providing the latter with a greater intensity of cargo and passenger turnover and thus increasing their profitability. At the same time, the trade volume between the outskirts and the center of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was increased. It contributed to the intensification of economic development of certain districts of Bukovyna region.

The Role and Effect of movement for supporting local railway by citizens

The Role and Effect of movement for supporting local railway by citizens

FUJITA Tomoya, Economic Studies on Tourist Train Toward the Support and Development of Local Railway and Regional Revitalization

FUJITA Tomoya,<i> Economic Studies on Tourist Train Toward the Support and Development of Local Railway and Regional Revitalization</i>