Railway Department Research Articles

Dynamics Performance Research and Calculation of Speed Threshold Curve for High-Speed Trains Under Unsteady Wind Loads

Affected by strong wind environments, the vibration of trains will significantly intensify, which will severely impact the running quality of trains. To address such challenges, an improved wind load model is proposed in this paper to simulate the shock of strong wind on trains. The proposed model employs the integral approach to calculate the equivalent wind load on trains and applies it to the body of trains during the dynamics simulation process. Eventually, the two-level running quality threshold curve for passenger and freight trains is acquired through the conditional probability density function and the regularized regression model. This achievement covers train speed restrictions for wind speeds ranging from 0~25 m/s, providing a scientific basis for railway departments to adjust train speeds based on real-time wind speeds. It is of utmost importance for ensuring the safe and efficient operation of trains under strong wind conditions.

Mechanism and improvement for tail vehicle swaying of power-centralized EMUs

The swing phenomenon of the tail vehicle will reduce the stability of the train operation, and even seriously deteriorate the ride comfort of passengers. In response to the relevant railway department, this paper reported the different dynamics performances in tail vehicle swaying when power-concentrated EMUs passed through a tunnel under push/pull operation. To analyze the characteristics and mechanism of the EMU tail swaying, field tests and numerical simulations were conducted. Firstly, through the on-track test, it was found that under push operation, the EMU tail continued to sway at a frequency of 1.3 Hz inside the tunnel, while under pull operation, only a swing of 1.7 Hz appeared at the tunnel entrance. Subsequently, through a simulation analysis, it was found that under push operation, the vortex-induced vibration of the tail carbody occurred inside the tunnel, leading to the sustained swing with a carbody hunting frequency of 1.3 Hz; under pull operation, due to the aerodynamic effect of the tunnel entrance, the secondary lateral stop had an abnormal elastic collision with the bogie frame, and the lateral impact on the bottom of the tail carbody caused a swing of 1.7 Hz, which was verified by the field test. Finally, for the motor vehicle of the EMU tail, two improvement measures of yaw damper optimization were proposed to alleviate the EMU tail swaying inside the tunnel. Furthermore, the research results can provide a reference for the aerodynamic swing problem of other trains, which has certain engineering significance.

MANCHURIA RAILWAY STATION IN THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY: PROBLEMS OF ORGANIZATION OF MANAGEMENT ON THE RAILWAY

The article concerns the organization of management at the Manchuria railway station in the early 20th century. The station was located on the Chinese territory, two kilometers from the Russian border. For several decades, the Russian population constituted a majority there; churches, schools and hospitals were built, and two customs offices operated. The management of the hamlet, which sprang up near the station, was carried out by the administration of the Chinese Eastern Railway. Simultaneously, at the time of the completion of the construction of the railway connecting branch “Chinese Junction - Manchuria”, part of the functions of the management of the station was taken over by the Trans-Baikal Railway. On the materials of the Russian State Historical Archive the author had shown that the joint management of the station by two railways at once had a number of peculiar features. To resolve disputes, the administration of the railways entered into special agreements. The first of them was signed in 1903 and made provision for all income and fees from the operation of the border section of the road from the Chinese border to the Manchuria station to go into the use of the Transbaikal road. All expenses for the operation of the rolling stock were also to be borne by the Trans-Baikal Road. The operation of the station facilities was strictly regulated: one part of the stone building for passengers, as well as the territories along the railway line, passed under the control of the Trans-Baikal Road, and the other - under the control of the China Road. Expenses for the maintenance and repair of the building for passengers, as well as other public facilities at the Manchuria station, were to be borne by each road in equal parts. The efficiency of the station largely depended on the due organization of the management system. The simultaneous participation in this process of the representatives of two railway departments at once led to a lack of unity of action in matters of organizing transportation. The state-owned Trans-Baikal Railway was dependent on the central departments. The Chinese Eastern Railway, as a private road, had broader competence. The presence of commercial agents at the Manchuria station did not add to unity, as they oft en pursued their own goals to the detriment of state interests.

Counterintelligence Activities of Gendarmerie Railway Police before and during World War I

The article analyzes the role of the gendarmerie railway police in the system of counterintelligence agencies in the Russian Empire before and during World War I. Based on documentary materials, the goals of enemy espionage on railways are revealed. Measures taken by the gendarmerie to restrict photography of railway infrastructure are examined. Through analysis of secret correspondence between gendarmerie leaders and railway department heads, categories of individuals most actively recruited by German and Austro-Hungarian intelligence for espionage are identified: prisoners of war, foreign nationals not involved in combat, and children. The organization of surveillance of foreign officials’ railway transport movements within the Russian Empire is also explored. The conclusion is drawn that the gendarmerie railway police’s ability to carry out counterintelligence tasks was complicated by their simultaneous duties as general and political police, as well as the scale of the infrastructure they were tasked with protecting.

Research on LINGO Problem of Solving Railway Station Safety Marking Based on Bernoulli Effect

In order to study the problem of safety marking setting in railway stations, this paper analyzes the factors directly related to the setting of safety markings, establishes a theoretical model based on Bernoulli effect, carries out the analysis of the interval planning of safety marking setting by debugging the parameter range in the model, and analyzes the sensitivity of the controllable parameter factors of the railway department. Reasonable control of the speed of the train into the station, reasonable setting of the platform hardware environment and other related suggestions.

Deep Learning Based Method for Early Warning of Price Risk in Railroad Bulk Freight Transport with Consideration of Time Series of Comprehensive Impact Index

The aim in this study is to enhance the price competitiveness of medium- and long-haul railroad bulk cargoes in the transportation market. Efficiently triggering an early warning for railroad bulk freight price risk is crucial. This paper discusses relevant factors affecting the pricing of railway freight from four aspects, namely the macroeconomy, the transportation market, the freight owner, and the railway enterprise. We construct a comprehensive index system for generating an early warning of railroad bulk freight prices. Utilizing a collected data set of 20 factor indicators that affected prices from 2015 to 2017, we calculate a comprehensive price risk warning index using the integrated entropy weight and the Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) method. We propose a risk warning level classification method based on the k-means clustering method to determine five levels of price risk warning. Subsequently, we establish comprehensive index prediction methods for issuing price risk warnings based on the back propagation (BP) neural network and the deep learning long short-term memory (LSTM) network. We verify that the prediction performance of the deep learning LSTM network is significantly better than that of the BP neural network by combining all coal freight data from the Shanghai Railway Bureau for the period 2015 to 2017 as a case study. The proposed method can predict the level of freight price risk more accurately in the next phase, based on the status of the factor indicators, and be used to assist railway departments in developing a more reasonable freight price adjustment strategy to scientifically mitigate freight price risk.

Tensions on the Railway: West Indians, Colonial Hierarchies, and the Language of Racial Unity in West Africa

AbstractBeginning in 1900, colonial railway departments in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria began turning to the Caribbean for skilled labor instead of hiring African workers. When West Indian railway workers began to arrive in West Africa, Africans were indignant, and they voiced their objections in newspapers. West Indians sometimes responded to these grievances with calls for racial unity, yet their appeals were inflected with colonial hierarchies. Such exchanges were centered on railway jobs, but they were also embedded in larger discussions about empire, race, and the legacies of the transatlantic slave trade. I argue that these exchanges reveal the significance of colonial hierarchies and diasporic tensions in the intellectual history of pan-Africanism in early twentieth-century West Africa. The article draws on newspapers and archival research from West Africa, the Caribbean, and the UK.

Improved RAkEL's Fault Diagnosis Method for High-Speed Train Traction Transformer.

The traction system is very important to ensure the safe operation of high-speed trains, and the failure of the traction transformer is the most likely fault in the traction system. Fault diagnosis in actual work relies largely on manual experience. This paper proposes an improved RAkEL (Random k-Labelsets) algorithm for the fault diagnosis of high-speed train traction transformers. Firstly, this article starts from the large amount of "sleeping" fault maintenance data accumulated by the railway department, takes a single maintenance record as an instance, uses specific monitoring values to construct an instance vector, and uses the fault phenomena corresponding to the monitoring indicators as labels. Then, this paper improves the step of selecting k-labelsets in RAkEL, and extracts associated faults using the Relief algorithm. Finally, this paper excavates and uses the association rules between data and faults to identify traction transformer faults. The results showed that the improved RAkEL diagnostic method had a significant improvement in the evaluation indicators. Compared with other multi-label classification algorithms, including BR (Binary Relevance) and CLR (Calibrated Label Ranking), this method performs well on multiple evaluation indicators. It can further help engineers perform timely maintenance work in the future.

Crack in Railway Track Detection and Alerting

The Indian Railways is one of the leading public transport systems all over the world with route length over 68,103 KM. However, regardingfacilities, services and safety of people is not yet reached the global standards. Other factors include gaps in between tracks, irregular checks in detecting faults and improper maintenance. The past incidentswhich took place show that the accidents taking place are due to improper maintenance of tracks. But manual checks are still the method used onrailways which are time consuming. The proposed system was designed to overcome the above problems by developing a preprogrammed railway track detection system which is an effective method implemented using Raspberry Pi Pico as a Processor. The IR sensors were used in detecting gaps between railway track and an alert message is sent through Telegram Application along with locality of the fault so the railway department can take necessary steps to avoid accidents and many lives of people.

FIGHTING FOR FINANCIAL INFLUENCE IN OTTOMAN LANDS ON THE EVE OF WORLD WAR I: SMYRNA-AIDIN RAILWAY NEGOTIATIONS

The Smyrna-Aidin Railway Company was the only British railway company in Asia Minor before the outbreak of World War I. The railway was essential to the British Empire to carry agricultural products and mines to the Smyrna Port. On 2 November 1912, the Smyrna-Aidin Railway Company’s agent at Constantinople submitted an application for a concession to the chief of the Railway Department of the Ministry of Public Works, and a copy was handed to the Grand Vizierate. The concession applied for was to construct and operate a line of approximately 80 km. starting from a point on the eastern shore of the lake of Eğirdir at a distance of about 20 kilometers from the city of Eğirdir, and ending at the shore of the lake of Beyşehir. The Ottoman Government tried to use the extension of the line as leverage to have economical gains such as creating new monopolies or imposing consumption duties on petroleum, spirits, sugar, matches, tinder, cigarette paper, and playing cards. However, a year later, the Italian Government signed a contract to study the construction of a railway from Adalia to Burdur. The negotiations over Smyrna-Aidin Railway exposes power dynamics between the two Great Powers on the eve of World War I.

Simulation of Influencing Factors of Buried Pipeline Interfered by Subway Stray Current

The degree of interference of stray currents generated by urban rail transit to nearby buried pipeline was governed by a variety of factors. The buried pipeline model containing the subway return current system was built by COMSOL software, and the fluctuation characteristics of pipeline potential under single and bilateral power supply modes were analyzed to determine the influence of subway return current system parameters and soil resistivity and pipeline corrosion layer resistivity on pipeline potential, while the distribution of pipeline potential under non-uniform soil model was calculated. The results show that when the locomotive traction current and rail longitudinal resistance are doubled, the fluctuation degree of pipeline potential is approximately the same multiple. When the soil resistivity is 1000Ω·m or the pipeline anti-corrosion coating resistivity is 106Ω·m, the pipeline is free from stray current interference. The rail ground transition resistance is not a significant factor of pipeline potential fluctuation. The operation of the train causes the corrosion sate of the pipeline to change constantly. When the longitudinal soil resistivity is unevenly distributed, the increase of soil resistivity at the traction substation side leads to the overall positive shift of pipeline potential and further intensification of pipeline corrosion. The simulation results provide a reference for the railway department and pipeline department in the reasonable planning and layout of rail transit and pipeline.

Features of the state policy in the field of social security for orphans and children deprived of parental care

Introduction. Children are of special importance to every society as they are the basis of the future of the nation. Protection of the legal rights and interests of children has always been one of the priority tasks of the country. Due to the regulated legal framework and powers, the state is obliged to provide every child with a dignified life and create conditions for its comprehensive development. However, there are situations when children are left without parental care for various reasons, then it is quite difficult for them to assert their own rights and interests. Under such circumstances, the state undertakes to maintain and raise such children, i.e. orphans and children deprived of parental care. Unfortunately, according to the Ministry of Social Policy, as of 2022, there were almost 70,000 orphans and children deprived of parental care in Ukraine, and about 10,000 children become orphans every year. Knowing that we are now living in a difficult time, a time of war, we understand that the number of orphans and children deprived of parental care will increase even more, so the state must provide every child with the necessary protection and care that is necessary for their well-being, taking into account her guardians or other persons responsible to her by law, and to this end take all appropriate measures to give the child the opportunity to develop comprehensively and adapt to life in society. Based on the above, there is a need to study the basic principles of the state's social policy regarding the protection of social orphans in Ukraine. The aim of the article is to analyze the features of the state policy in the field of social security for orphans and children deprived of parental care in Ukraine and, accordingly, to identify the problems of its implementation and suggest ways of improvement. Methodology. The theoretical basis of this article is based on scientific approaches to the study of state policy issues in the field of social protection of orphans and children deprived of parental care in Ukrainian and foreign scientific publications. Results. It has been established that the provision of monetary assistance to orphans and children deprived of parental care is classified according to two main criteria: depending on the age of this category of children, or depending on the form of placement of such a child. Based on the analysis of the foreign experience of social protection of orphans, promising measures and directions for the introduction of new technologies within Ukraine were identified. After analyzing the dynamics of social payments for orphans and children deprived of parental care, using the example of the Railway Department of Social Protection in Lviv, they proposed ways to increase payments and reduce the number of social orphans.

A Novel Hybrid Group Decision Making Approach Based on EDAS and Regret Theory under a Fermatean Cubic Fuzzy Environment

Intercity railway is an important system for the development of urban agglomeration, and the site selection of the Line Management Department of Intercity Railway (LMDIR) is a significant task for the railway department when constructing intercity railways. Owing to the complexity and uncertainty during the selection process, we constructed a multiple expert multi-criteria decision making (MEMCDM) method to provide a rational decision support model for a railway management department in the Fermatean cubic fuzzy set context. In this regard, an innovative extension called Fermatean cubic fuzzy sets (FCFSs) that integrates Fermatean fuzzy sets (FFSs) and cubic sets; several basic theories of FCFSs, including the score and accuracy functions; and distance measures are also given. Then, a series of Fermatean cubic fuzzy Hamacher operators are put forward to flexibly fuse Fermatean cubic fuzzy information, and the corresponding valuable characteristics of these operators are also investigated. Thirdly, the Fermatean cubic fuzzy logarithmic percentage-change-driven objective weighting (LOPCOW) approach is recommended based on the score function to recognize the importance of criteria, and the similarity-based method is deployed to identify the expert weight information. Fourthly, a hybrid MEMCDM methodology integrating the proposed Fermatean cubic fuzzy Hamacher operators, the LOPCOW method, whose evaluation is based on distance from average solution (EDAS) method based on regret theory, is designed to ascertain the prioritization of the schemes. Consequently, an empirical test concerning the site selection of LMDIR is shown to validate the feasibility and usefulness of the designed MEMCDM approach. The analysis involving the sensibility test and comparison study with prior methods is displayed to emphasize the effectuality and advantages of the propounded method. The outcomes demonstrate that the hybrid method recommended in this research possesses superior robustness and feasibility to cope with complicated decision issues. The findings of this research show that the presented method can recommend more credible site selection of LMDIR when encountering uncertainties and abundant impact factors.

Study on Intelligent Diagnosis of Railway Turnout Switch Based on Improved FastDTW and Time Series Segmentation under Big Data Monitoring

Turnout equipment is a key component to ensure the safe operation of trains. How to identify turnout faults is one of the important tasks of railway engineering departments and electrical departments. We used machine learning algorithm to analyze the similarity of mechanical characteristic data during turnout actions and then realized the intelligent diagnosis of turnout faults under the background of big data. We segmented the mechanical motion curve according to the characteristics of the original curve, calculated the similarity between the motion curve to be diagnosed and the template motion curve through the improved fast dynamic time warping algorithm (FastDTW), and diagnosed the fault according to the dynamically determined optimal threshold. Experiments show that the algorithm for predicting turnout faults based on improved FastDTW and time series segmentation algorithm is an accurate and effective method, which can improve the key technology of intelligent monitoring, early warning of the whole process of turnout movement, and more detailed analysis of the motion curve for the railway department.

Classification of Rail Track Defects Based on Computer Vision Using DNN

Abstract: Economic status of the country depends on the Trading which needs transportation. Railways is the most preferred road transportation as most of the profit oriented and movement of people in India is done by elevated railway. Hence it is required to monitor the track health condition frequently using an automated crack detection system. The proposed framework focuses on implementation of python to detect track defects based on Computer vision using image processing techniques. The proposed work uses CNN algorithm through yolov5 model. Yolov5 is one of the best model to achieve highest accuracy in object detection. Yolov5 has become industry standard for object detection due to its speed and accuracy. Here feeding of preprocessed image to CNN classifier to obtain the type of track. The proposed work also helps to identify the severity and nonseverity of defects, also suggests the precautions. Automatic communication occur where the message is sentto authorized people of railway department. The Accuracyof the proposed work on the procured images is more than 95%.

The Preservation of Tracing Paper: A case Study of TRA Archives

Taiwan is located within a subtropical region where the preservation of tracing paper is challenging, given its susceptibility to changes in humidity. Although the National Archives Administration (NAA) currently provides a controlled environment for the repositories of the National Archive, this archive has sustained damage and deterioration due to a legacy of compromised storage and inherent fragility of its contents. Of particular interest are the collective holdings of the Taiwan Railways Administration (TRA), the Ministry of Transportation and Communications (MOTC). Historically, these holdings were originally known as ‘The Railway Department of the Traffic Bureau, under the General Governor of Taiwan’, during Japanese colonial governance. This specific collection dates from 1895 to 1997 and includes over 10,000 engineering drawings. Previously, the NAA had implemented linings to both repair damage and aid in the preservation of the physical archives. However, this study compares this approach with an alternative humidification method using Gore-Tex® to relax and flatten these drawings on tracing paper. The focus of this paper is to evaluate dimensional change as a result of these treatments and to make recommendations in regards to their respective suitability for addressing the condition of the TRA collection.

FTS: File Tracking System for Railway Board

Abstract: The aim of this paper proposes a project based implementation File Tracking System (FTS) used in private and mostly in government sector. This project is built on Railway System using three tier architecture. This application is used to prevent corruption. There are a large number of departments in the Railway Department where file transfer is done from one department to another. The number of files moving within the specific time duration, file allocated to any employee and whether the file has been forwarded or not. Sometimes if someone has to do corruption then they does not send that file forward, seeing all this problem we have developed File Tracking System (FTS), which track the movements of the file within the organization. This application will keep track the movement of files from one desk to another inside the department.

Analyzing behaviour of a rail wheel assembly with alumino thermite weldment with modal analysis simulations in ANSYS

The Free vibration response of the Railway track is an important area in the design of the Rail and its joints to improve the ride comfort of the passengers. In this study, the rail weld considered is alumino thermite weldment used in majority of Indian Railways network. This paper aims at the study of the vibration response of rail wheel assembly having an AT weld on as a rail joint subjected to free vibration and to find the Natural frequencies of vibration and mode shapes. The geometric model of rail and weldment with wheel and axle components is modelled using Space-claim which is a part of ANSYS package and analysed using numerical simulation package ANSYS 2020 Workbench. In this work, free vibration analysis or modal analysis of the rail weld is carried out to extract the first few modes of vibration. The Natural frequencies obtained along with the corresponding mode shapes of the rail weldment show that they are within the permissible range specified by the standards of railway department also for better ride comfort of the passenger.

Innovative Approach for Railway Signalling in Sri Lanka: An Appraisal of Technical and Economic Rationale

Sri Lanka Railway has been increasingly dependent on foreign sources for its signalling, particularly after the introduction of computer-based electronic technology for signalling. Not many companies have competence in the subject, and the resultant deficiency of market competition has compelled the Sri Lanka Railway to depend on foreign third-party contractors to obtain signalling solutions at high cost. Developing a home-grown railway signalling system, anchored on local technological knowhow which would use components that are readily available in the market, has been a long-felt need. This paper summarises the research and development activities undertaken by the Railway Department in designing and installing a new signalling system to ensure a greater degree of self-reliance in maintenance, sustenance, and further improvement at lesser costs. The technology innovated was used to install colour-light railway signalling at four railway stations and over 28 km of automatic block signalling, resulting in a capital cost saving of around 90% compared to recently procured imported systems. The new system has been found operationally reliable and easily maintainable. With this technological innovation, continued improvements to it, and expansion of its coverage in the railway network, Sri Lanka Railway could look forward to securing very significant operational and cost advantages while generating national economic benefits as well in the years to come.

A reliability assessment approach for slab track structure based on vehicle-track dynamics and surrogate model

The reliability assessment of rail infrastructure is directly related to the safety and effectiveness of railway transportation and critical for railway management department. This paper presents an approach for service reliability analysis of slab track from the point of view of the vehicle-track system operational safety. The vehicle-track dynamics is simulated by the established finite element model (FEM) and the limit state function (LSF) is defined on the danger of derailment. To reflect the real state of track geometric condition, the track irregularity spectrums (TISs) are extracted from the measured track irregularity data and fitted by the seven-parameter formula. Then, a set of time series can be obtained from the TISs using a binary wavelet-based inversion method and then input to the FEM to obtain the value of LSF. Finally, Monte Carlo simulation (MCS) is used in the calculation of track reliability. To overcome the slow convergence of the vehicle-track models, this study develops a surrogate model based on support vector machine (SVM). It is validated that the established SVM can well approximate the relationship between the track irregularities to the derailment coefficients in terms of small error and high correlation. More importantly, the efficiency is more than 1000 times higher than traditional FEM. This is a pioneering study to incorporate vehicle-track dynamics into the reliability assessment of slab track in service. For a 1024-m section of slab track, results show that its reliability index can satisfy the requirement in specifications.