Railway Company Research Articles

Consequences of Ignoring the Curvature of the Earth in Nineteenth-Century Large Surveys: A Case Study of Geometrical Geodesy and the Survey of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company Eighty-Mile Reserve

Consequences of Ignoring the Curvature of the Earth in Nineteenth-Century Large Surveys: A Case Study of Geometrical Geodesy and the Survey of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company Eighty-Mile Reserve

Erratum for “Consequences of Ignoring the Curvature of the Earth in Nineteenth-Century Large Surveys: A Case Study of Geometrical Geodesy and the Survey of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company Eighty-Mile Reserve”

Erratum for “Consequences of Ignoring the Curvature of the Earth in Nineteenth-Century Large Surveys: A Case Study of Geometrical Geodesy and the Survey of the Texas and Pacific Railway Company Eighty-Mile Reserve”

Evaluation and maintenance method for general speed railway turnouts based on multi-source data

In recent years, with the increasing passengers' requirements for safety and comfort, as well as the measures of increasing revenue and reducing the expenditure of railway company, more efficient, more scientific and more comprehensive requirements have been put forward for the maintenance of railway turnouts. This paper develops a maintenance strategy based on the Turnout Service State Indicator (TSSI), derived from an analysis of multi-source data concerning turnout conditions. The weights of critical indicators affecting turnout conditions are determined using Analytical Target Cascading (ATC) and Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP). Subsequently, turnouts are classified into four categories—great, good, general, and poor—based on their TSSI values, guiding specific maintenance strategies. The proposed assessment method was validated using data from four sets of turnouts collected on actual tracks, showing consistency between the assessment results and field technicians' evaluations. A comparative analysis of the ATC and AHP suggests that the latter provides a more scientific and objective assessment of turnout conditions. The established methods for evaluating the service state and deciding on turnout maintenance actions have been proven feasible and practical through field validation. These methods can be broadly applied to maintain general speed railway turnouts to enhance repair efficiency and reduce maintenance costs.

Financial and Market Implications of the CSX-Conrail Acquisition

Conrail, Consolidated Rail Corporation, founded in 1976, was established due to the bankruptcy of multiple railway companies in the Northeast and Midwest regions of the United States. The federal government intervened to establish the company with the aim of restoring the services and profitability of bankrupt railways. As it developed, Conrail's railway network covered major cities and industrial centers in the Northeast and Midwest of the United States, possessing a strong market position and strategic value. Therefore, Conrail had become a target for mergers and acquisitions by large railway companies such as CSX and Norfolk Southern. Through mergers and acquisitions, the acquiring party could expand market coverage, enhance operational network connectivity and competitiveness. This is a complex and multi-layered issue, the CSX acquisition of Conrail involved financial and market implications, legal obstacles, competitive pressures, and strategic objectives. By analyzing these themes in depth, we could understand the key issues and response strategies that enterprises face in the M&A process, providing valuable experience for future M&A transactions. The study applied methods such as comparative analysis and case model analysis to analyze the main challenges, response strategies, and effects comprehensively and systematically in the M&A process, providing reference for similar cases. Overall, CSX's acquisition of Conrail demonstrates how companies can achieve acquisition goals and long-term development through flexible strategies, effective communication, and professional management in the face of complex legal, market, and operational challenges.

Prospects of autonomous railway transport development

The implementation of unmanned train control systems offers a number of advantages, such as increasing the capacity of railway lines and traffi c volumes, reducing the ‘human factor’, as well as reducing operating costs. The paper considers the challenges arising from the use of automatic train control systems, and presents the prospects for the implementation of automatic technologies in railway transport for various railway systems. The social and economic aspects of changing professional activities in railway transport are described. Grades of automation applicable to surface urban railwaytransport are presented. The issues of proving the functional safety of machine vision systems as part of the train traffic control system and determining their level of safety completeness are discussed. Examples of railway transport automation in Russia and other countries are given. Basic scenarios of automatic control system operation describing normal and abnormal situations are formulated. In conclusion, the levels of technological readiness of the reviewed solutions in the fi eld of train traffic automation are defi ned. The tasks faced by railway companies in implementing these technologies are outlined, and possible ways of overcoming obstacles to the introduction of automatic systems are proposed, taking into account the current political situation.

Market Failure, Information Asymmetries, and Monopoly Profits: The Barranquilla Railway and Pier Company in Colombia, 1888–1933

Market Failure, Information Asymmetries, and Monopoly Profits: The Barranquilla Railway and Pier Company in Colombia, 1888–1933

Tracks of change: The rise and fall of Bolivia's National Railway Company (ENFE): 1965–1995

This article examines the Bolivian State Railway Company (ENFE) from its inception in 1965 to its privatisation in 1995, focusing on its structural evolution, growth, and modernisation in the context of Bolivian state capitalism. It underscores ENFE's substantial contribution to Bolivia's economy, particularly in freight and passenger transport. By comparing ENFE’s labour productivity and financial ratios with other Latin American state railways, this study reveals ENFE's distinct capability for revenue generation due to limited road competition. Key primary sources include ENFE annual reports, World Bank loan documents, archival correspondence, transport studies, and the local press. This article argues that ENFE successfully addressed transportation challenges and contributed to Bolivian economic development. These findings provide valuable insights into Bolivian economic history and Latin American railway historiography through a case study of a strategic state-owned enterprise, illustrating the potential of leveraging World Bank sources for future comparative research on Latin American railways.

Industry 4.0 for passenger railway companies: A maturity model proposal for technology management

The railway sector is a relevant segment for the transportation of people and goods, and its efficiency and sustainability are crucial for fostering economic development and minimizing environmental impact. This research proposes an Industry 4.0 maturity model for passenger railway companies to manage emerging technologies, aiming to enhance them holistically to leverage the internal and external business dimensions. An exploratory and qualitative approach was employed, involving semi-structured interviews with experts in Brazilian railway transport. Based on the opportunities and Key Performance Indicators identified within the sector, we developed an Industry 4.0 maturity model for companies and subsequently tested it in collaboration with a transport operator. The findings suggest that the proposed Industry 4.0 maturity model can effectively guide practitioners in applying advanced technologies for robust and efficient train operations, prescriptive maintenance, strong supply chain management, and improved passenger experience and worker performance. This research provides a noteworthy and substantial contribution by introducing unprecedented frameworks that offer a holistic view of Industry 4.0 in the context of passenger railways. The study's practical impact is aiding passenger railway companies to navigate their Industry 4.0 journey. Academically, the research contributes to advancing the holistic understanding of Industry 4.0 as an ongoing phenomenon, enriching the academic discourse by discussing published works and presenting empirical data from railway companies.

The link between transportation industry and transportation cryptocurrencies – A comparison among airline, rail, and shipping industries

This work examines the link between some of the most important transportation companies’ stock performance with the corresponding transportation cryptocurrencies. To do so, airlines, rail, and shipping companies’ stocks are investigated, examining for a probable link with the transportation cryptocurrencies, and also investigating the attributes of this link. The variable-Lag time-series causality is employed to test the channel of causality (if such exists), and the multifractal detrended cross-correlation analysis is utilized to investigate the relationship’s attributes. According to the results, the three transportation industries differ in the way they relate to transportation-related cryptocurrencies. More precisely, the transportation industries differ in the way they relate to transportation cryptocurrencies since airlines, and railway companies affect the price of the cryptocurrencies related to transportation, and cryptocurrencies also affect in a similar magnitude these fields. On the other hand, the shipping companies have a greater effect on the cryptocurrencies, while the cryptocurrencies in very few cases affect these stocks. Finally, a long-run relationship is identified, implying that transportation companies and the corresponding cryptocurrencies are positively and long-term related. The results important because they unveil a link between the transportation companies and the corresponding cryptocurrencies, with this link differing among these industries. This finding should be taken into account in the adoption of relevant technologies from the transportation field.

Research on Intercity Railway Subsidy Mechanism Optimization from the Perspective of a Government–Company Game Model: A Case Study of Henan Intercity Railway

Intercity railway is an important part of public transportation, and the priority development of public transportation cannot be achieved without the support of government policies. This paper aims to find a more reasonable subsidy model for the governments and intercity railway companies. The paper analyzes the mechanism of intercity railway subsidy and uses the evolutionary game method to balance interests among governments, railway companies and social capitals. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) The introduction of performance subsidy into the traditional loss subsidy strategy can alleviate the conflict of interests between government and companies, and achieve a win-win conclusion: an annual revenue of 50 million RMB for the railway and 4 million RMB for the social capitals could be generated by the new subsidy model. (2) According to different intercity railways, reference performance standards are different, and operating mileage, pairs of trains and passenger flow are some of the factors that can be considered. The innovation of this paper is the introduction of a new dynamic subsidy model that combines performance and loss subsidies to intercity railways. For sustainable transportation development, it is significant for the government to develop a new reasonable intercity railway subsidy strategy.

Research on interval prediction method of railway freight based on big data and TCN‐BiLSTM‐QR

AbstractWith the rapid development of logistics, the categories of goods and the frequencies of train transportation in railway freight have increased significantly. The volatility and uncertainty of railway freight transportation have become even greater. Accurately predicting railway freight volume in the medium to long term has become increasingly challenging. On the basis of traditional prediction models, this paper introduces the concepts of interval and probability prediction, and proposes a temporal convolutional network (TCN)‐bi‐directional long short‐term memory (BiLSTM) interval prediction method for medium and long‐term railway freight volume. The method uses grey relational analysis for data dimensionality reduction and feature extraction, and TCN, BiLSTM, and quantile regression for modelling. Through a case study of freight transportation on the Shuohuang Railway, the results show that the TCN‐BiLSTM model achieves higher accuracy in point prediction and better performance in interval prediction compared to other general prediction models. The interval prediction can provide references for freight volume fluctuations in periods with significant volatility, which can assist railway transportation companies in better scheduling and planning based on such information.

1910~20년대 일본인 교원의 ‘만주·북지나(北⽀那)’ 시찰

This article examines the observation trip to Manchuria·North China of Japanese teachers in colonial Korea during the 1910s and 1920s. The observation trip was conducted under the following background. At that time, it was popular in Japan for students and teachers to travel to Manchuria. And in colonial Korea the teacher retraining policy was actively being implemented. In the beginning, the trip group visited only Manchuria. However, the area of the visit gradually expanded to Qingdao, Beijing and Tianjin. The members of observation trip observed the natural environment, cityscapes, facilities of South Manchuria Railway Company, the Russo-Japanese War sites, the battlefield of the war between Germany and Japan, historic sites of China and a variety of schools. As a result, the observation trip to Manchuria·North China contributed to the improvement of Japanese teachers' qualities. In addition, it provided information about the situation of education for Koreans in South Manchuria and the current state of education in China to colonial authorities of Korea.

A Case Study of Negated Adjectives in Commuters’ Twitter Complaints

In today’s digital society, social networks such as Twitter are a preferred place for expressing one’s emotions, especially when they are negative. Despite a growing interest in the variety of linguistic realizations of commuters’ complaints, little attention has so far been paid to writers’ choices, especially when morphologically or syntactically simpler alternative formulations are available. A typical example is the “inference towards the antonym” triggered by the negation of contrary adjectives, an effect that is stronger for positive compared to negative adjectives. In the context of railway transport, a customer could use the negative statement The train is not clean instead of the corresponding affirmative sentence The train is dirty. It remains unclear, in our current state of knowledge, why online customers would prefer more complex constructions to voice their criticisms. Based on a large corpus of tweets sent to the French and Belgian national railway companies by their customers, I have semi-automatically extracted instances of not (very) + adjective (ADJ). Based on previous observations in the literature, I expected positive adjectives to be more frequently used in these negative environments compared to negative ones. As recent research demonstrates that one’s desire to save the interlocutor’s face is not necessarily the only reason why positive adjectives are used in linguistically negative environments, other motivations will also be considered. More precisely, I suggest that in a context where negativity is prevalent, customers using negated positive adjectives kill two birds with one stone: not only do they signal an issue with a product or a service, pointing to expectations that have not been met by the company, but they also mitigate the impact of their negative comments to the positive face of the service managers with whom they are interacting. By offering a quantitative, corpus-based analysis of negative constructions, complemented by a qualitative linguistic analysis of selected examples, this research sheds new light on users’ lexical choices in online negative customer feedback.

Research on the path of effective management of participation in joint-venture railway companies by China railway group

Research on the path of effective management of participation in joint-venture railway companies by China railway group

Cost Inefficiency of Japanese Railway Companies and Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic and Digital Transformation

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic seriously affected railway businesses. The motivation of this study is to provide vital information to railway company management and policymakers by quantitatively assessing the cost efficiency of railway operations. We examine the efficiency of Japanese listed railway companies by applying stochastic frontier analysis to their operational and financial data from 2005 to 2020. Then, we classify the companies into four groups by cost efficiency levels and identify the characteristics of the best-practice companies. Furthermore, we analyze the factors influencing cost efficiency before and during the pandemic. Finally, we discuss the sustainable business practices and measures of digital transformation (DX) that can be applied to improve efficiency and survive severe events like the pandemic. From the results, we reveal that cost-efficient companies succeeded in securing profits through the creation of new services by proactive DX investments. The practical contributions of this study are threefold: quantifying the deterioration in efficiency due to the pandemic; identifying characteristics of best-practice companies; and examining the relationship between cost efficiency levels and concrete measures and investments for sustainable business practices. This study proposes a new analytical framework that combines conventional methods.

FROM POLITICAL LEADERSHIP TO THE CRIMINALIZATION OF THE STRIKE ON THE STATE RAILWAYS. DECREE 1,157 GENERAL LAW OF RAILWAYS (1889-1931)

The Chilean State Railway Company implemented regulations aligned with the liberal world's political circumstances. Key laws included the State Railway Police Law (1863) and State Railway Administration Law (1868), amended multiple times. These regulations aimed at effective management, prioritizing good service, probity, and efficiency. Labor protests from the late 19th to early 20th centuries prompted regulatory adjustments.

Operations Research at SBB Railway Company

Operations Research at SBB Railway Company

Operations Research at Norfolk Southern Railway Company

Operations Research at Norfolk Southern Railway Company

Railway line planning with passenger routing: Direct-service network representations and a two-phase solution approach

The railway line planning problem (LPP) plays a crucial role in determining the quality of services provided to passengers, as well as operation costs borne by railway companies. In periodic railway LPPs, it is common to consider passenger transfers between train lines to realize a general passenger travel cost setting in the railway system. While detecting passenger transfers requires incorporating passenger routing into mathematical formulations, thereby significantly complicating the problem. Studies on transfer-included LPPs are generally based on the Change&Go network that is constructed based on a pre-given line pool, which however is usually non-exhaustive due to computational intractability. To efficiently include passenger transfers in large-scale railway LPPs, this paper proposes a novel extended direct-service network representation of LPP, where lines are dynamically generated within the optimization process, and part of passenger transfers between lines can be precisely captured without the need for explicit modeling of passengers’ distribution on specific lines. A two-phase solution approach based on the representation is designed. The first phase formulates LPP with part of transfers as a path-based service network design model, solved using a branch-price-and-cut algorithm. The second phase conducts a neighborhood search around the first-phase solution to seek better ones when considering all passenger transfers. Numerical results showcase the good performance of the two-phase solution approach. It delivers optimal solutions in 18 out of 24 test instances for a small case and achieves optimality gaps within 2.85% across all small instances. The large case study of China’s Shandong high-speed railway network whose line pool size reaches millions demonstrates the scalability of the approach and its advantage over the traditional Change&Go method with partial line pools and an exact model developed in the paper.

MODERN METHODS OF DIGITALIZATIONOF ENTERPRISE ACTIVITIES

The pace and scale of digitalization of modern global information society opens up new business opportunities. At the same time, they pose new challenges for business owners and managers. Increasing digitalization has enabled various new forms of enterprise operation, but it has also forced companies to reflect on their current strategy early on. Given this fact, the aim of the study is to present the impact of digitalization on enterprise activities by stimulating the use of online sales through electronic distribution channels, social networks and mobile applications. To confirm this impact, the authors propose a comparative system for assessing the parameters of digitalization impact on the activities of an enterprise. On the basis of the developed «tree of goals», the dynamics of digitalization of services is projected and prospects for the development of this field of activity are outlined. To test the proposed methodology, a railway passenger transportation company (OJSC Russian Railways) was chosen as the object of study. Research methods used in the study include: 1) statistical; 2) SWOT analysis; 3) systematization, comparative and structural-dynamic analysis; 4) expert survey. As a result of identifying the impact of individual elements of digitalization on the level of activity, a number of recommendations are proposed for the development of digitalization of services for the sale of electronic tickets and their accounting for railway passenger transportation enterprises. Given the relevance of the topic under study, the structure is understood as a solid basis for further discussion and future research. Growth strategies for companies are identified and described, as well as the assets and capabilities required for successful digital transformation. A research program is proposed to stimulate the activities of enterprises in the field of digitalization.