Upgrading of freight railways to meet operational and market demands
Paper i proceeding, 2018

The European objective of a modal shift of freight transports to railways will require extensive upgrading of existing railway lines since very few dedicated freight railways are currently being built and existing lines were built for traffic demands at the time of construction. A transition to increased and enhanced railway freight operations can therefore be costly and complicated. To minimize negative effects, a guideline for upgrading was developed within the Capacity4Rail project. The current paper presents the major findings from this guideline. In particular it outlines different upgrading possibilities and their implications, and details structured approaches to upgrading analyses. Setting out from the Capacity4Rail handbook, the current paper discusses possibilities for upgrading of substructures, bridges, tunnels, and the track structure. In these areas, an overview of challenges and possibilities is presented together with examples of experience from operational upgrading. The paper concludes that freight line upgrading using a more streamlined approach as outlined in the guideline is a necessity if EU objectives on modal shifts in transportation are to be met. Further, it demonstrates why a political drive is necessary to increase efforts to upgrade freight lines.

railway freight lines

structural integrity

railway track technology

asset management, bridges, tunnels

Författare

Anders Ekberg

Chalmers, Mekanik och maritima vetenskaper, Dynamik

Björn Paulsson

Chalmers, Mekanik och maritima vetenskaper, Dynamik

Lennart Elfgren

Luleå tekniska universitet

Proceedings of 7th Transport Research Arena TRA 2018

7th Transport Research Arena TRA 2018
Vienna, Austria,

Increasing Capacity 4 Rail networks through enhanced infrastructure and optimised operations (CAPACITY4RAIL)

Europeiska kommissionen (EU) (EC/FP7/605650), 2013-10-01 -- 2017-09-30.

Styrkeområden

Transport

Energi

Ämneskategorier

Teknisk mekanik

Transportteknik och logistik

Infrastrukturteknik

DOI

10.5281/zenodo.1491480

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Senast uppdaterat

2022-04-07