ACEM-Rail D1.1 State of Practice r0

ACEM-Rail 265954
D1.1 State of Practice
SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME

THEME SST.2010.5.2.1.
Automated and cost effective railway infrastructure maintenance
Automated and Cost Effective Maintenance for Railway

Contract: 265954
D1.1 Report on the state of practice of railway infrastructure

maintenance
Deliverable number
D1.1
Work Package number
WP1: State-of-art of maintenance in Railway & Other Industries
Task
Task 1.1
Revision
Due date
2011/02/28
Submission date
2011/02/25
Distribution Security
PU
Deliverable type
Reviewer
F.G. Benitez, N. Caceres, L. Romero (US)
Authors
N. Jimenez, A. Barragan, P. Cembrero, F. G. Benitez, N. Caceres, F.

Schubert, A. Simroth, Cesare Santanera
Partners
CEMOSA, US, FRAUNHOFER, DMA
Verification
F. Schubert (Fraunhofer)
Approval (coord.)
N. Jimenez (CEMOSA)
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Table of Contents
1. INTRODUCTION..........................................................................................................................9
1.1
1.2
1.3
1.4
1.5
BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS .............................................................................................. 9

MAINTENANCE CLASSIFICATION ................................................................................................. 10
MAINTENANCE COSTS .................................................................................................................. 11
MAINTENANCE TECHNIQUES ....................................................................................................... 13
MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ............................................................................. 14
2. RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE..............................................................15

2.1
2.2
GENERAL MAINTENANCE ASPECTS.............................................................................................. 15

ORGANIZATION OF THE RAILWAY SECTOR ................................................................................ 16
2.2.1. The liberalization of the Railway sector in the European Union................................................................... 17

2.2.2. Models for the organization of the rail sector................................................................................................ 17
2.2.3. Interoperability and safety in the EU............................................................................................................. 19
2.3
2.4
INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE OPERATORS ............................................................................ 21

RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE. THE TRACK .................................................................................. 22
2.4.1. Superstructure ............................................................................................................................................... 23

2.4.2. Substructure................................................................................................................................................... 31
2.5
TRACK DEGRADATION AND FAILURE .......................................................................................... 34
2.5.1. Superstructure ............................................................................................................................................... 34

2.5.2. Substructure................................................................................................................................................... 45
2.6. TRACK MAINTENANCE AND RENEWAL .............................................................................................. 48

2.6.1. Superstructure ............................................................................................................................................... 48
2.6.2. Substructure................................................................................................................................................... 55
TRACK MEASUREMENT ....................................................................................................59

3.1
MEASUREMENTS AND EVALUATION OF TRACK DEFECTS .......................................................... 59
3.1.1 Superstructure ................................................................................................................................................ 59

3.1.2. Substructure................................................................................................................................................... 66
3.2
3.3
MEASUREMENTS AND EVALUATION OF DEFECTS IN TRACK GEOMETRY .................................. 68

THE "MEASUREMENT TRAIN" CONCEPT ..................................................................................... 71
3.3.1
DATA SYSTEM.......................................................................................................................75
4.1
4.2
4.3
4.4
4.5
4.6
4.7
The "unattended measurement" concept................................................................................................... 72
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 75
SENSOR DATA ANALYSIS............................................................................................................... 76
DATA MEASUREMENT TRANSMISSION......................................................................................... 76
DATA MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS AND THRESHOLD EVALUATION. ............................................ 77
MAINTENANCE EVALUATION ....................................................................................................... 78
MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND SCHEDULING ............................................................................. 79
ALGORITHMS AND TOOLS ............................................................................................................ 79
RAILWAY INSPECTION TECHNIQUES ..........................................................................83

5.1
5.2
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 83
NON-DESTRUCTIVE EVALUATION METHODS FOR RAILWAY COMPONENTS .............................. 83
5.2.1
5.2.2
5.2.3
5.2.4
5.2.5
5.2.6
5.2.7
5.3
Ultrasonic inspection ................................................................................................................................ 83

Acoustic Inspection Techniques ............................................................................................................... 86
Electromagnetic Inspection....................................................................................................................... 87
Thermographic inspection ........................................................................................................................ 89
Radiographic inspection............................................................................................................................ 90
Inspection using visual cameras................................................................................................................ 90
Distributed Optical Fibres......................................................................................................................... 92
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES FOR RAILWAY INSPECTION ..................................... 93
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5.3.1
5.3.2
5.3.3
5.3.4
5.3.5
5.3.6
Neural networks ........................................................................................................................................ 94

Machine vision.......................................................................................................................................... 94
Fuzzy logic................................................................................................................................................ 95
Case base reasoning .................................................................................................................................. 95
Expert systems .......................................................................................................................................... 95
Data mining............................................................................................................................................... 96
A REVIEW OF INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE PLANNING MODELS..........97

6.1
6.2
6.3
INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................................................. 97
GENERAL MODELLING CONCEPTS ............................................................................................... 99
MAINTENANCE OPTIMIZATION MODELS ................................................................................... 100
6.3.1
6.3.2
6.3.3
6.4
6.5
6.6
Strategic level ......................................................................................................................................... 100

Tactical level........................................................................................................................................... 100
Operational level..................................................................................................................................... 101
TRACK MAINTENANCE COST MODELS ....................................................................................... 102

MAINTENANCE PLANNING AND OPTIMIZATION TOOLS ............................................................ 105
LITERATURE SUMMARY ............................................................................................................. 109
RECENT R&D EFFORTS IN THE WORLD....................................................................111

7.1
7.2
EUROPEAN PROJECTS................................................................................................................. 111

INTERNATIONAL PROJECTS ....................................................................................................... 120
ANNEX A GLOSSARY OF NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING TECHNIQUES ................123

ANNEX B ACRONYMS ............................................................................................................127
REFERENCES AND BIBLIOGRAPHY.....................................................................................129
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List of Figures
Figure 1: Superstructure and subgrade..............................................................................................23
Figure 2: Rail profiles UIC 50 (50 E1), UIC 54 (54 E1), UIC 60 (60 E1) and UIC 71 (71 E1). .....24
Figure 3: Twin-block sleepers............................................................................................................26
Figure 4: Monoblock sleepers............................................................................................................27
Figure 5: Elastic fastenings ................................................................................................................28
Figure 6: Resilient pads......................................................................................................................29
Figure 7: Crossings ............................................................................................................................30
Figure 8: Codification of rail defects .................................................................................................36
Figure 9: Rail defect UIC 211 (tache oval)........................................................................................37
Figure 10: Rail defect UIC 221..........................................................................................................37
Figure 11: Rail defects UIC 2201 (on the left) and UIC 2202 (on the right).....................................38
Figure 12: Rail defect UIC 2221........................................................................................................39
Figure 13: Rail defect UIC 2222........................................................................................................39
Figure 14: Head checks......................................................................................................................40
Figure 17: Rail head with plastic deformation in initial state ............................................................41
Figure 18: Rail head with plastic deformation in advance state ........................................................42
Figure 19: Measurement points in a tunnel cross section. .................................................................47
Figure 20: Embankment building ......................................................................................................48
Figure 21: Manual weld recharge in a head of turnout .....................................................................49
Figure 22: Welding in union of rail, and last grinding in the same union with manual grinding
machine ..............................................................................................................................................49
Figure 23: Surface of contact in rail head before grinding, with small defect and after grinding,
where roughness can be seen on the grinding surface. ......................................................................50
Figure 24: Large grinding machine for massive grinding in track line, and medium grinding
machine for grinding medium distance of the rail. ............................................................................51
Figure 25: Video image of wrong fastening. .....................................................................................52
Figure 26: Ballast profile machines ...................................................................................................53
Figure 27: tramping machine: the first arm fixes the rail and the second ones remove the ballast. ..54
Figure 28: Formation layer rehabilitation machine...........................................................................55
Figure 29: Formation rehabilitation machine scheme.......................................................................55
Figure 30: Damaged embankment, the bad drainage move the soil just under the ballast ................57
Figure 31: Artificial defect in rail head used for calibration and system testing ...............................60
Figure 32: Star crack around of bolt hole.......................................................................................60
Figure 33: Rail profile and gauge measurement instrument ..............................................................62
Figure 34: Typical result of a rail profile processing according to UIC 519 norm............................63
Figure 35: System for switches measurements ..................................................................................65
Figure 36: ballast curb........................................................................................................................65
Figure 37: Principle of tunnel geometry measurement by a rotating range finder. ...........................66
Figure 38: Tunnel measurement equipment.......................................................................................67
Figure 39: Tunnel image of measurement equipment .......................................................................67
Figure 40: Transfer functions for the different track geometry measurements. ................................69
Figure 41: Typical result of a track geometry measurement. ............................................................70
Figure 42: System for gauge track measuremet.................................................................................70
Figure 43: Block diagram of a measurement train.............................................................................71
Figure 44: Possible extension of a measurement train within ACEM Rail. ......................................72
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Figure 45: Sketch of data processing .................................................................................................77

Figure 46: Underfloor Testing Unit at Deutsche Bahn (UFPE, German acronym)...........................84
Figure 47: AURA Testing Assembly at Deutsche Bahn for wheel set and solid axle testing ...........84
Figure 48: Ultrasonic Railway Wheel Inspection System .................................................................85
Figure 49: Test train of the Deutsche Bahn for non-destructive testing of railway tracks ................85
Figure 50: Hollow-shaft integrated wireless multi-sensor system for evaluation of the rail-wheel
contact ................................................................................................................................................87
Figure 51: Simulation of wave propagation from the rail/wheel contact to the sensor (left hand side)
and typical averaged signal from the noisy raw data (right hand side, measured). ...........................87
Figure 52: Schematical lay-out (left) and photograph (right) of early test set-up of the sensor
system.................................................................................................................................................88
Figure 53: Thermal image: part of a rail with defects at the upper , Image field: 8 cm x 8 cm ........90
Figure 54: Positions of the visual cameras........................................................................................91
Figure 55: Example of an assembled camera image..........................................................................91
Figure 56: Black and white image for detection of rail surface defects ............................................92
Figure 57: Maintenance planning scheme .........................................................................................98
Figure 58: Track renewal and maintenance activities distinguished by Esveld (2001)...................103
Figure 59: Ramsys main input/output capabilities (Source: Mermec, 2011). .................................107
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List of Tables
Table 1. List of EU-funded Projects. ...............................................................................................111
Table 2: Research projects carried out in the European Research Area. .........................................112
Table 3: Research works at international level. ...............................................................................121
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1. Introduction
In the last fifty years, maintenance of technical systems has become increasingly important in most
industrial and service sectors. Failures of these systems may cause expensive production losses and
can have negative effects on the people and environment.
The term Maintenance also broadly stands for Repair, Operations and Overhaul (MRO). It involves
fixing any sort of mechanical or electrical device should it become out of order or broken (known as
repair, unscheduled or casualty maintenance). It also includes performing routine actions which
keep the device in working order (known as scheduled maintenance) or prevent trouble from arising
(preventive maintenance). MRO may be defined as, "All actions which have the objective of
retaining or restoring an item in or to a state in which it can perform its required function. The
actions include the combination of all technical and corresponding administrative, managerial, and
supervision actions" (EFNMS). By maintenance operations, such as repairs and replacements, the
failed components can be restored to the operational state.
1.1 Basic concepts and definitions
Maintenance includes all actions necessary for retaining a system or an item in, or restoring it to, a
state in which it can perform its required function (British Standard, 1984).
Other definitions of the concept of Maintenance is given (ITS, 2007) as:
1. Any activity such as tests, measurements, replacements, adjustments and repairs
intended to retain or restore a functional unit in or to a specified state in which the unit can
perform its required functions.
2. For material all action taken to retain material in a serviceable condition or to restore it
to serviceability. It includes inspection, testing, servicing, classification as to serviceability,
repair, rebuilding, and reclamation.
3. For material all supply and repair action taken to keep a force in condition to carry out
its mission.
4. For material the routine recurring work required to keep a facility (plant, building,
structure, ground facility, utility system, or other real property) in such condition that it may
be continuously used, at its original or designed capacity and efficiency for its intended
purpose.
The concept of maintenance actions has been subjected to substantive changes during the last
decades (Kobbacy and Murthy, 2007), trespassing the original focus on repairing-replacing actions
to preventing activities.
The pressure to have the technical systems working under the highest quality standards give way to
an increase of maintenance actions, which derives in the increases of maintenance costs.
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1.2 Maintenance classification

Maintenance activities are grouped into tasks. These tasks can be classified into three main
categories (Budai-Balke, 2009):

breakdown maintenance
corrective maintenance,
preventive maintenance,
predictive maintenance.
Breakdown maintenance (BM). They are the tasks where equipment is run down to its breaking
down point, and maintenance is carried out afterward. Its purpose is to enhance the useful life of a
particular equipment/system. These tasks aim to intentionally run the equipment to failure for
analyzing purposes.
Corrective maintenance (CM). The maintenance tasks are carried out after break down. It aims to
get back a failed or malfunctioned item, equipment or system to run operationally at earliest. It can
be defined as the tasks required when an item has failed or worn out, to bring it back to working
order. This maintenance is triggered by an unscheduled event, such as failure of an item. The costs
of this type of maintenance are usually high due to several reasons: a) the urgency to have the
system repaired, b) the failure of an item might concatenate others, c) external costs may be derived
as a consequential of the original failure, such as lost of production, personal and environmental
safety and integrity.
Preventive maintenance (PM). This maintenance is carried out before break down occurs. Its aim is
to reduce the probability of occurrence of failure. This type of maintenance has many different
variations and includes preplanned actions as adjustments, replacements, renewals, inspections. The
tasks corresponding to this type of maintenance take place under a deterministic schedule in
opposite to the unpredicted case of the corrective maintenance which follows a random failure
patterns. This type of maintenance is carried out to prevent breakdown during operational time by
maintaining it in off time. Therefore, it can be planned ahead and performed when it is convenient.
The main purpose of this type of maintenance is to avoid failures. It follows a scheme of actions
and inspection intervals. There is not guarantee that the equipment will continue to work even if it is
maintained it according to the maintenance plan, though the probability of failure decreases. This
type of maintenance can be subclassified into:
Systematic preventive maintenance (SPM), it includes operations preplanned in advance.
Operations prescribed by the technical specifications of equipments, apparatus and systems
are included in this set; it also includes all major operations to be carried on the main asses
of railway infrastructure (i.e.: ballast, tamping, geometry).
Detected preventive maintenance (DPM), are the defects and malfunctioning detected in situ
during another maintenance work or inspection which can be carried out immediately. In
case the operations have to be postponed, due to lack of resources (material, personal, timewindow), the operations are reported either preventive or corrective according to its severity
and duly scheduled.
Predictive maintenance (PdM). Also known as Conditional-based maintenance. They are the
techniques and tasks that help determine the conditions of in-service equipment for predicting
possible degradations in order to predict when maintenance is needed and should be performed.
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They try to predict when failure will occur and to plan the preventive maintenance. The techniques
used are based on statistical analysis and control to determine at what state preventive/corrective
maintenance will take place.
1.3 Maintenance costs
Railway transport has risen up impulsed by the increase of demand in the last decade. Moreover,
several European States prioritize policies tending to transfer road transport (passengers and freight)
to rail in order to reduce road congestion, and taking into account the inability to build new roads
due to lack of land and space.
Longer operating time, higher number of services and trains increase the annual traffic load and
accelerate the infrastructure deterioration; this results into an increase of the number, severity and
frequency of renewal work and maintenance operations and, on the other hand, it has decreased the
available time for maintenance as railway services posses the infrastructure and rolling stock most
of the 24 hours of the day. The need for more maintenance and the increase of infrastructure
possession time (right-of-way, RoW) to carry it out, is in conflict with the increment of the
infrastructure use by train services to satisfy the demand.
In addition to the above issues, the European directive regarding infrastructure charges and capacity
allocation (EU OJ, 2001) defines an organizational and regulatory framework tending to an
optimization of the railway infrastructure.
All this factors have make maintenance costs scale severely and the infrastructure administrator and
railway operator to balance these factors by management systems that provide a reasonable solution
to users regarding many aspects of the service (quality, safety, cost).
The interest of all railway administrations and operators to keep costs bounded have fostered, in the
last years, to invest efforts in R&D programmes to easy a practical solution to this problem.
Orders of magnitude of maintenance costs in some sectors are presented in Cross (1988) as a
percentage of the total operating costs.
These costs are affected by factors such as:
increases of maintenance actions due to higher quality standards,
increases of manpower costs of maintenance personnel,
increases of management costs.
Preventing maintenance is an increasing area of importance due to the economic interest to reduce
maintenance costs. Corrective maintenance tasks will be never avoided because of unexpected
failures. These failures provoke disruption of the production/service and cause not only additional
costs for production losses but additional malfunctions/damages to other related components and
equipments.
Predictive maintenance is a step forward intended to minimize corrective maintenance. This is one
of the most active area of research in maintenance, as it is most founded in inferring models that
predicts the risk of failure and residual life of components, to integrate these single component
models into the system model composed of its components, and finally to merge them into the
equipment predictive model. The difficulties encountered in this bottom-up modelling process may
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end up with conservative prediction scheduling actions that might increase the maintenance actions
subjected to the equipment over those strictly needed. This conservative behaviour gives lieu to an
increment in the maintenance costs, due to earlier part replacement with still substantial residual
life.
The four maintenance types can be coordinated under a scheduling scheme, by combining activities,
in order to minimize the period of time the equipment is idle. This approach helps saving costs. This
way of proceeding has also consequences. The replanning of the maintenance scheduling should be
carefully optimized in order to avoid non-attention to previous maintenance scheduled tasks, which
might additional increase costs.
Railway infrastructure maintenance costs
Regarding railway infrastructure maintenance, a survey conducted among maintenance agencies
(Daniels, 2008) revealed that most maintenance activities are concentrated in:

rail maintenance,
track geometry maintenance,
tie and fastener,
ballast maintenance,
track inspection, and
emergency services (i.e.: derailment, weather repairs).
All above activities affect the track system mainly. The primary maintenance costs follows from
wear and fatigue rather that secondary sources such as corrosion, derailment, human error and
vandalism. These two main causes affect severely to track geometry and switches, reporting a 50 %
of total maintenance costs (Zoeteman, 2007).
Additional to this revealed fact, track maintenance costs and planning are heavily influenced by
track possession and site access windows. An average work window of 4 hours is most common, of
which 50 % is expended for displacements to the work site. This means that a planning regarding
access, to coordinate maintenance crews and resources, is required in order to keep costs bounded.
There is a second additional factor that cannot be neglected and influences the overall maintenance
budget, it comes from the need of replacement of components due to their inappropriate
performance or design during the project deployment.
Finally, the third most influence factor is deferred track maintenance. When this case occurs,
corrective maintenance has to be carried out as a matter of urgency, and costs rise up.
These findings are almost repeated for all type of railway infrastructures.
The state of the art reports that maintenance costs are influenced by the following factors:
Infrastructure maintenance activities. The costs associated can vary with system
configuration and the technology associated to the infrastructure. Maintenance activities are
characterised by the Maintenance Demand defined as the level of resources (effort,
materials, equipment, organizational and administrative) to provide and acceptable asset
condition level.
Resources (labour, material, equipments, organizational and administrative) costs.
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Work-window costs. It stands for the cost associated to the time-window created to conduct
maintenance activities when the infrastructure possession is detracted from railway service.
Inspection and maintenance technologies costs. They are affected by the inspection
technology used and the maintenance techniques utilised to carry out the operations.
Inspection and maintenance policies costs. They are affected by the level of maintenance
enforced, the frequency of inspections.
Operating costs. They stand for the costs associated to operational optimisation of
maintenance operations.
Indirect cost. They represent the costs not directly involved in the maintenance tasks such as
preparing crews and materials for a task, mid-level supervision, stocktaking of inventory,
purchasing activities, equipment procurement and maintenance, training and organisation
overheads).
It is worth mentioning that maintenance costs vary dramatically over time. In some cases decreasing
(i.e.: some materials) in other intensifying (i.e.: labour). There is a huge number of documents in the
literature reporting unit prices of components by different railway administrations and constructors
over time. Higher difficulty is encountered in pointing out unitary costs for maintenance operations
performed by the administrations. Though these figure are of primary interest for a cost
optimisation planning programme, there is no point to import them from other railway infrastructure
administrations but for the sake of comparative purpose (Daniels, 2008).
There are numerous cost-estimating approaches, ranging from statistical and data mining techniques
to degradation models (Kumar, 2008). Some methodologies associate the dependent variables (cost,
degradation level) with influence parameters (traffic characteristics, component age) to derive
predicting models. For the case of degradation models a further correlating model between cost and
degradation levels has to be inferred. For particular assets, i.e. track, predictive degradation models
allow a quantitative relationship between influence factors, degradation and maintenance costs
(Larsson, 2004). This defines a two-process approach, the first one predicts the rate of degradation
of the system/equipment/component through quantifiable modeling, the second stage estimates
maintenance demand and the management of this degradation through maintenance cost models; in
this last case modelling efforts relay in historical maintenance and expenditure records, and a wellmaintain database should be available.
Several studies have reported a weak relationship between maintenance costs and pre-defined
explicative independent variables. In the particular case of track maintenance, railway traffic seems
to be not statistically significant regarding costs (Daniels, 2008). In other cases (Anderson, 2006)
significant interaction is found between switch maintenance costs, assets age and rail weight.
1.4 Maintenance techniques
The techniques and approaches for maintenance vary with respect to the type of maintenance
according to its classification.
General techniques for Predictive maintenance (PdM). The main pile where predictive maintenance
is founded is performing either periodic or continuous monitoring of the equipment condition. The
data captured in these monitoring inspections are used under an analysis scheme to derive predictive
patterns. Most PdM inspections take place while equipment is in service. This is the reason of this
maintenance type is known as condition-based maintenance. The analysis schemes are based on
statistics, fuzzy logic, artificial intelligence, etcetera.
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To evaluate equipment condition, predictive maintenance utilizes nondestructive testing

technologies such as infrared, acoustic vibration analysis and other specific online tests. Mixed
methods such as Collaborative Process Automation Systems (CPAS) utilize measurements on the
actual equipment in combination with measurement of process performance, measured by other
devices, to trigger maintenance conditions. A brief and general description of most used and
promising techniques in railways is attached in Annex A.
1.5 Maintenance planning and scheduling

The scope of maintenance planning and scheduling is to perform all maintenance activities in such a
way that cost, generalized cost, is minimized. Planning involves ordering of tasks and resources;
scheduling takes care of sequencing the tasks regarding time.
From a chronological point of view maintenance activities can be grouped into two classes:
Stationary or tactical, which are planned on the long term. The maintenance scheduling can
be modeled in an infinite planning horizon, defining static rules which do not change with
time. This type of activities allows to group them into related-activity sets with the interest
of programming them under an optimum scheme.
Dynamic or operational, carried out on the short term. The activities take place due to
unexpected tasks to carry out corrective operations and other non-corrective operations
making use of unexpected opportunities. The maintenance scheduling is modeled in a finite
planning horizon, which changes continuously. The activities are also able to be grouped
into sets under dynamic optimization overhead management. Dynamic maintenance
management models pursuit the optimum scheduling of maintenance operations under a cost
objective function subjected to constraints (technological, service, time-window, among
others). These models group preplanned operations with unexpected ones in order to
rationalize all maintenance activities. When unplanned operations appear unexpectedly due
to deterioration of components for instance, the maintenance belongs to the corrective type;
in this case the maintenance operation is known for certain and a deterministic maintenance
scheduling can be settled. On the other hand when unplanned operations are envisaged from
PdM models, under a probabilistic environment, the prospective maintenance operations are
expected with an appearance probability, and a stochastic maintenance scheduling should
take the lead. These two last cases to classify the maintenance management into either
deterministic or stochastic models.
The objective of the stochastic Predictive Maintenance (SPdM) is to give an answer of the
most probable maintenance operations, onwards these will be as deterministic PM
operations.
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2. Railway Infrastructure Maintenance
2.1
General maintenance aspects
The primary tasks of rail infrastructure are:
first of all, to ensure safe operations of rolling stocks at the scheduled speed,
to afford conditions for the highest quality and reliability of transport,
to contribute to a sustainable development.
The management of infrastructure should respond to the following objectives:
to maintain and increase high level of safety,
to reduce costs, without however decreasing safety standards,
to improve organization, materials, equipment and staffs qualification in order to respond

more efficiently to requirements of operation.
Appropriate maintenance of infrastructure is vital to achieve the aforementioned goals.

Railway infrastructure maintenance works need possession of the infrastructure. The term
possession of the infrastructure indicates the use of the infrastructure by some activities. When the
infrastructure is used by trains the possession for service takes place, possession for maintenance
indicated the use of the infrastructure by maintenance operations. The possession for maintenance
can be either partial, when maintenance and trains share the infrastructure, or privative when the
maintenance takes full possession of it. The first category implies safety risk conditions to be
properly assessed and may be precluded by some/many Administrations. In that follows the term
possession for maintenance stands for full possession of the infrastructure by maintenance
operations. As train services is the most usual activity supported by the railway infrastructure,
single term possession is customary identified with maintenance operations, and is a synonymous of
possession for maintenance.
Possession can be divided into several categories (Office of the Rail Regulator, 2001; Budai-Balke,
2009), ordered according to the severity of the inconveniences carried out by the disruption of the
train services:
Overnight possession takes place in the free-of-service periods (time-window). The

possession for maintenance depends on the extension of the available time-windows defined
by the service of last train on a day and the first train of next day.
Weekend possession makes use of the fact that train services are reduced (may be reduced,
re-scheduled or re-routed) respect to labor-day services, therefore larger and more frequent
time-windows might be available.
Daytime possession, the shortage of available time-windows makes this possession to be

focused on operations that cannot be postponed for latter, such as corrective works.
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Maintenance is critical for ensuring safety, train punctuality, overall capacity utilization and lower costs for
modern railways. Maintenance productivity is directly related to the available time-windows of train
services. Due to the fact that time-windows are more scarce regarding the experienced increment in
rail transport demand, advance managerial techniques and procedures get into action as a tool to
combine the objective pursuit by both need, train service and the maintenance.
2.2
Organization of the Railway sector
Small private companies led the initial development of Railway, in 19th century and in the early
20th. Later on, due to the strategic importance of the railway sector, most governments initiated a
process for the nationalization of their railways during the period 1935-1960. Between 1960 and
1980 most railways were under State control.
In the 1980s and 1990, the deregulation and gradual liberalization of transport market forced the
railway sector to show more flexibility, reduce cost, adapt to new technologies and modernize. In
this period some countries like Japan and Great Britain privatized their railways.
Since 1990s, important changes occurred in the organization/management of railway around the
world in order to proof the financial efficiency and competitiveness of the rail transport compared
to other means like roads or airplanes. To achieve that goal, most countries are performing changes
in the organization/management of infrastructure and in the operation of exploitation of rail
services. Railway is evolving to a more open market performance allowing the possibility of other
operators, different than national ones, to run services.
Following worldwide trends, in the last 20 years, the European Commission has been very active in
restructuring the European rail transport market and strengthening the position of railways with
respect to other transport modes. Commission efforts have concentrated on three major areas which
are all crucial for developing a strong, transparent and competitive rail transport industry: (i)
opening of the rail transport to market competition, (ii) improving the interoperability and safety of
national networks and (iii) developing rail transport infrastructure.
The liberalization of the railway sector, as in other strategic fields like electricity, gas or telephone,
requires the distinction between the infrastructure owners and managers who run the network and
the railways companies that use it for transporting passenger and goods. The former (infrastructure
ownership/management) is a natural monopoly while the latter (operation of the transport service)
should be competitive in an open market. Different organisational entities must be set up for
transport operation, on the one hand, and infrastructure management, on the other. Essential
functions such as allocation of rail capacity (train paths), infrastructure charging and licensing
have to be defined. All these operation must be performed in a neutral fashion to give new rail
operators fair access to the market.
On the other hand, improving the interoperability and safety of national networks is essential in
order to promote a single European Rail Market. Some technical barriers still need to be overcome
for the sake of interoperability.
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2.2.1. The liberalization of the Railway sector in the European Union

European Union Directive 1991/440/EU was the first step towards the definition of infrastructure
manager and service operator as different agents. Most relevant EU legislation on this issue is listed
below:
Separation of the management of infrastructure from the operation of rail services: Directives
1991/440/EU, 2001/12/EU, 2004/14/EU and 2004/51/EU: The infrastructure manager and the
Operators must have separate balance sheets.
Separation of passenger and freight transport and avoid cross of subsidies among them.
Determination of minimum conditions to be met for a rail operator to run infrastructure: Directives
1995/187EU and 2001/13/EU).
Methodology of calculation of infrastructure charges: Directives 1995/19/EU and 14/2001/14/EU.

This methodology helps outsiders to enter into the railway sector or to perform its activities in
another country under equal conditions than already-running operators.
Definition of the infrastructure manager duties in order to avoid discriminations: Directive

2001/12/EU.
Definition of rules to ensure transparency in finances including measures to avoid state subsidies for
freight transport and possibly subsidies form infrastructure manager: Directive 2001/12/EU.
Definition of the figure of a Regulator agent to control the infrastructure manager: Directive
2001/14/EU.
The full liberalization of the railway freight transport in 2007 and of the passenger transport in 2012
were other of the EU legislation objectives as it is described in the European Commission web page.
Finally, the European Union legislation can not impose any rules about ownership of transport
(article 222 of the Treaty of Rome), leaving each country the decision whether privatizing or not
parts of the railway.
2.2.2. Models for the organization of the rail sector

To accomplish with the separation of infrastructure management and rail operation (Directives
1991/440/EU and 12/2001/12/EU), countries in the EU has chosen different models.
Below different models for the organization of the railway business in different countries are
described. The main goal is to allow new rail operators to enter into the market. Nevertheless, so
far, in most cases, the new rail operator is the one and only operator. Not only EU models are
explained but also those in Japan and USA.
2.2.2.1. The semi integrated model (France)
From the Second World War and until the 1990s, the public company SNCF (Socit Nationale des
Chemins de Fer) managed both the infrastructure and the operations of railway, it were a public
company. When the directive 1991/440/EU forced to separate the infrastructure managing from the
operation, the government created a new organization RFF (Rseau Ferr de France) to manage the
infrastructure. Little resources (personnel and technical equipment) were given to the new entity so
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that it had to subcontract all the maintenance operations. Furthermore, RFF demanded a unique
subcontractor for the whole French railway network. As a consequence, the only company with the
required resources for such task was SNCF.
Therefore, since then RFF is the public authority on railways and the infrastructure manager.
Responsibilities, objectives, strategies and financial issues concerning the management of the
infrastructure are carried by RFF, but the maintenance is still subcontracted to SNCF. Therefore,
although changes in the organization of the rail sector has been accomplish to meet EU regulation,
the public authority (RFF) and the public company (SNCF) work together leaving little room for
competitors.
2.2.2.2. The separated model (Germany, Italy, Greece, Spain)
This model led a legal separation of business responsibilities and different train operators and
infrastructure managers. The infrastructure manager and the rail services operation company can be
overruled by a Holding Company (Germany, Greece) but both have total independence.
2.2.2.3. The separated model with privatization (UK)
In the UK the separation of the railway manager and the train operator was performed in
conjunction with the partition of the train operator in 25 small operators called TOCs Both the
TOCs and the infrastructure manager (Railtrack) had been privatized in the 1980. In the 1990s the
government partially renationalized Railtrack because it had serious financial problems.
2.2.2.4. USA
The most relevant characteristic of the American rail market is that rail operators can own the track
they are running on. As competition is the basis rule in the American economy, legislation tries to
assure rights of rail operators so that they can run on infrastructure owned by another (and often
competitor) company.
Both passenger and freight services were operated by private companies until 1970 when the
National Passenger Railroad Corporation (AMTRAK), a federal owned corporation subsidized by
the federal government was established. AMTRAK owns and operate part of the country rail
infrastructure. It also has the right to operate all other tracks under negotiated access agreements,
subject to adjudication in the event of dispute with the infrastructure owner).
Regulation of the transport sector in US is assured by the Surface transportation board, whose
jurisdiction covers all railways operating within the United States and has duties to:
Ensure that rail carriers have trackage rights to operate on another carrier's infrastructure,
reduce tariffs, particularly when complaints for market dominance and power have been addressed,
address quality, control exit, under specific circumstances, from the market, approve or decline
mergers in the rail industry or impose conditions (i.e. trackage rights) on the merger, to promote
competition.
2.2.2.5. Japan
Strong densities of population in Japan (with 1,500 people living per km2 of habitable area, against
160 in France, 260 in the United Kingdom and 50 in the USA), favour rail passenger traffic. On the
contrary, freight has a rather marginal share.
Japanese National Railways (JNR) started facing serious fiscal problem in the mid-1960s, which
werent overcome after two decades, in spite of four restructuring plans. The whole rail network
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was split in 1987 in 6 regional private passenger companies (each one owing its own infrastructure).
Another company, Japan Freight Railways, which pays fees to the 6 rail passenger companies for
using their tracks and other facilities, took freight traffic.
After almost 25 years, the deregulation and privatization has reach its objective. There is a strong
competition in the rail market in Japan with more than 130 rail passenger companies and 30 rail
freight operators.
2.2.3. Interoperability and safety in the EU
As mentioned above, one of the main goals of the European Commission is the promotion and
development of a single European rail market. Such achievement requires to overcome some
technical barriers to allow for an improve interoperability (or technical compatibility) of
infrastructure, rolling stock, signalling and other rail systems, as well as less complex procedures
for approving rolling stock for use across the European rail network.
Over the years, national rail networks have developed different technical specifications for
infrastructure. Different gauge widths, electrification standards and safety and signalling systems
make more difficult and more costly to run a train from one country to another. Specific EU
legislation has been set to promote interoperability and overcome such differences but there is still a
lot of technical trouble to be solved.
The European Commission issued several directives aimed at removing technical barriers to the
supply of equipment and the running of trains between Member States. They were adopted by the
European Council and the Parliament between 1996 and 2004. After that date, other directives and
amendments have been published
There are three main groups of Directives:
i)
ii)
iii)
High-Speed directives: (1994/48/EC, 1996/48/EC, 2008/57/EC).

Conventional directive (2001/16/EC)
Amendment Directive (2004/50/EC) which made changes to the High-Speed and Conventional
directives.
The purposes of the above directives are:

To allow common technical standards, called Technical Specifications for Interoperability
(TSIs) to be applied across Europes railways. These specifications lay down the fundamental
elements of each subsystem and identify the constituents that are critical from the perspective of
interoperability. They are drafted by working groups overseen by the European Rail Agency
(ERA), an agency set up in 2006 with the purpose of reinforcing rail safety, harmonising
technical standards and promoting interoperability, a process in which cooperation between EU
Member States and rail stakeholders is essential.
To establish a common European verification and authorisation process for placing new,
upgraded or renewed infrastructure or rolling stock into service.
To provide a process for putting certain rail components known as interoperability constituents
onto the rail market.
The set of interoperability directive is the cornerstone of a three-tiered structure:
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The Directives itself, containing essential requirements to be met by the system. They
provide specific details regarding the proper implementation of the interoperability
requirements including the authorisation of placing in service, the EC checking procedure
and the EC declaration of conformity with the essential requirements and the TSIs, as well
as the definition of the role of the notified bodies and cooperation between them.
The technical specifications for interoperability, which have to be adopted in accordance
with the procedures laid down by the Directive;
All the other European specifications, including European standards from the European
standards bodies: CEN, Cenelec and ETSI. They are not compulsory but confer a
presumption of conformity with the essential requirements of the Directives.
The main points of the interoperability system are:

o The signalling system
o The railway gauge width
2.2.3.1. Interoperability and gauge width
The gauge width was fixed by standards since the 19th century. All the EU countries have the same
gauge width except for Spain. Since 1990 Spain is building its new high speed lines with European
gauge. Therefore the European high speed gauge width is unique.
2.2.3.2. Interoperability and Signalling system
The signalling system is one of the first items of the interoperability system. Europe has more than
twenty different signalling and speed control systems for rail transport. Although expensive, onboard systems in locomotives fitted with transducers, which react to signals transmitted from the
track, are necessary for both safety and traffic management. Nevertheless, the coexistence of
various systems is a barrier to the development of international rail traffic, as locomotives have to
be able to 'read' the signals from different networks when crossing borders. The Thalys train for
example, which links Paris and Brussels in particular, has seven on-board systems. This results in
increased costs and breakdown risk, as well as being a headache for drivers, who have to be able to
juggle several interfaces. In addition, this segmentation represents an obstacle to the integration of
rail transport on a European scale, while road transport benefits from the absence of such barriers.
The twenty different systems coexisting in Europe are currently developed on a national level. They
are very different in terms of performance and safety. Several fatal accidents, including those in
Bologna in 2005, Albacete in 2003 and London in 1999, show that a more effective signalling
system with automatic train speed control could improve the safety of the railways.
Locomotives operating internationally also have to be equipped with a variety of on-board systems
able to process the information transmitted by track-side systems. As adding on-board systems is
expensive, and sometimes even impossible, some trains have to stop at borders in order to change
locomotive. As a result, for the Thalys train the numerous signalling systems to be integrated push
up the cost of manufacturing each trainset by 60%. Such obstacles make the connection and
integration of the different European networks problematic.
The Commission therefore calls for the gradual transition to a system that is common to the various
Member States: the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS). This has two
components:
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GSM-R, a radio communication system based on standard GSM (used by mobile

telephones), but using various frequencies specific to rail;
ETCS (European Train Control System), which not only allows permitted speed information
to be transmitted to the driver, but also monitors the driver's compliance with these
instructions.
While the deployment of GSM-R, based on successful public GSM place quickly, ETCS has been
developed specifically for the rail sector and is advancing slower. It requires the installation of a
specific module on board the train and the use of the same ETCS format for the transducers laid
along the track.
Given the long service life of rail equipment (more than 20 years), it is impossible to renovate the
entire network at once. The Commission therefore estimates that it is inevitable that there will often
be at least one system coexisting with ETCS on board and/or on the track.
The Commission is planning a rapid migration strategy, with the aim of quickly reaching a critical
mass of ETCS equipment. It therefore hopes that a sufficient number of traction units will be
equipped over a period of ten to twelve years, while at the same time large interoperable
international corridors are created.
2.3 Inspection and maintenance operators
The railway infrastructure manager can perform inspection and maintenance tasks:
- Using its own resources
- Subcontracting all or part of it (inspection, track, catenary or communications) to different
subcontractors
- Subcontracting everything to only one subcontractor (as it is the case in France)
Usually large railway administrators prefer to subcontract maintenance tasks, that require a lot of
employees and to perform inspection ones themselves. On the contrary small railway administrators
cannot afford to have (expensive) inspection trains but can perform maintenance activities with
their own resources.
In general, the administrators are not technologic developers and must buy different instruments and
software from different suppliers, which are in different systems and data format. In fact the big
tramping and ballast cleaning machines are designed by a few companies (Plasser, Robel, Speno)
which usually operate it themselves, but the measurements instruments involves a lot of companies
which must be coordinated.
Summarising, railway maintenance involves many different companies:
-
The infrastructure manager, who, in some cases (but not usually), may perform all tasks
itself, but in most occasions subcontracts at least parts of the work.
Inspection companies that owns inspection vehicles or install measurement instrumentation
into other company vehicles.
Specialised track maintenance companies that own tramping and ballast cleaning machines.
Communications and electric companies who that perform maintenance activities on the
electrical and communications systems.
Building companies that take care of subgrade maintenance.
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2.4
Railway infrastructure. The track
The term railway infrastructure covers all assets used for train operations, except rolling stocks. A
definition of railway infrastructure is given by European Community Regulation 2598/1970 and
comprises routes, tracks and field installations necessary for the safe circulation of trains.
Railway infrastructure consists on the following items:
i.
ii.
iii.
iv.
v.
vi.
vii.
viii.
Track: including rails, sleepers, fastenings, switches and crossings, ballast and platform. It
can be structured into superstructure and subgrade.
Bridges and viaducts: including pillars, decks, foundations
Tunnels
Electric system: including catenary and support third rail, substations and control
equipment,
Safety, signaling and communication systems including fixed signals, track circuits, train
control equipment, signal cables or wires, signal boxes and, for high speed lines, cab
signaling systems.
Lightning installations for traffic safety purposes.
Level crossings including appliances to ensure the safety of road traffic.
Passenger and goods platform and access ways
Maintenance of infrastructure can refer to the following components:
maintenance of track,
maintenance of electrification equipment,
maintenance of signalling equipment,
maintenance of rail traffic.
The maintenance of all these subsystems is a complex issue which makes it difficult to plan and
execute the maintenance task. Factors such as geographical and geological features, topography or
climatic conditions need to be considered when planning for maintenance. Furthermore, the
availability of the track for maintenance (on possession for maintenance, defined in Section 2.1)
without disrupting train services is also an important issue to be considered when planning the
maintenance tasks to be executed. Maintenance is critical for ensuring safety, train punctuality,
overall capacity utilization and lower costs for modern railways.
The ACEM-Rail project focuses exclusively on the maintenance of the track itself together with
some engineering structures like bridges or tunnels. The track can be structured into:
The track and track bed, also called superstructure, which supports and distributes train
loads and is subject to periodical and maintenance and replacement. It consists of:
o The rails, which support and guide the train wheels.
o The sleepers (also called ties, mainly in North America) with their fastenings, which
distribute the loads applied to the rails and keep them at a constant spacing.
o The ballast, usually consisting of crushed stone and only in exceptional cases of
gravel. The ballast should ensure the damping of most of the train vibrations,
adequate load distribution and fast drainage of rainwater.
o The sub-ballast, consisting of gravel and sand. It protects the upper layer of the
subgrade from the penetration of ballast stones, while at the same time contributes to
further distributing external loads and ensuring the quick drainage of rainwater.
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The subgrade, on which the train loads, after adequate distribution in the superstructure, are
transferred and which in principle should not be subjected to interventions during periodical
maintenance of the railway track. It consists of:
o The base, which in the case of the track laid along a cut consists of onsite soil, while
in the case of an embankment is composed of soil transported to the site.
o The formation layer, used whenever the base soil material is not of appropriate
quality.
Figure 1: Superstructure and subgrade

The track usually lies on ballast which provides a flexible support. It is referred as ballasted track.
However, it is possible, that the track is supported by a concrete slab, instead of ballast. In this case,
the support is inflexible and it is called slab track. Although a slab track is used in certain railways
(e.g. the Japanese and the German, among others), it is most effective when used in tunnels,
because it allows a smaller cross-section and facilitates maintenance. In most of the tracks
worldwide, a ballasted track is still the case, as it ensures flexibility (an important factor in the event
of differential settlements) and much lower construction cost, while at the same time offering a very
satisfactory transverse resistance, even at high speeds. The problem of noise, which is much greater
with the track on concrete slab than with the track on ballast, should not be disregarded. When a
slab track is applied (e.g. in the case of a tunnel), the sudden variation in track stiffness (felt by
passengers as a jolt) is lessened by placing rubber pads of a suitable thickness along the tunnel
entrance and exit.
The choice between ballasted and non-ballasted track should consider construction cost (much
greater for non-ballasted track), maintenance cost (much greater for ballasted track), together with
technical requirements. Both solutions have pros and cons.
2.4.1. Superstructure
The elements to be considered in the superstructure are:
- Track
o Rail
o Sleepers
o Fastenings
o Switches and crossing
- Track bed
o Ballast
o Sub-ballast
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2.4.1.1. Track
The track is composed of several elements: rail, sleepers and fastenings. Others elements that can be
found at certain points in the track layout are switches and crossings.
Rails
Rails support and guide the wheels of the train vehicles. Rail profile has been the object of
continuous improvement since the beginning of railways.
The cross-sections of gauge rails have been standardized by the UIC.
Figure 2: Rail profiles UIC 50 (50 E1), UIC 54 (54 E1), UIC 60 (60 E1) and UIC 71 (71 E1).
Sleepers
Sleepers are the track components used to transmit stress from rail to ballast.
The railway lines have sleepers of different types and materials. The selection of the materials
depends on the following factors:
- Sleepers construction cost.
- Purchase cost of fastening and other indispensable sleepers accessories.
- Sleeper lifetime
- Maintenance cost
- Probable waste values of sleepers at the end of its lifetime
- Weight of sleepers (it affect to transverse resistance)
- Distributions of train loads.
- Electrical insulating contributions
Sleepers can be made of steel, timber or concrete.
a. Steel sleepers
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The steel sleeper is an industrial product of simple construction. It consists of a profile in the form
of U. Its ends are forged to provide anchoring in the ballast, so as to ensure transverse track
stability.
Steel sleepers are easily manufactured, installed and maintained. They keep the track gauge
adequately constant for a long time. As steel sleepers are out of production today, no recent cost
data are available. Their lifetime is relatively long and after replacement they have still a certain
value as crap iron.
However, steel sleepers have many disadvantages. They have a low transverse resistance, a fact
prohibiting increased speeds on tracks with steel sleepers. Their form makes longitudinal and
transverse track positioning difficult. Steel sleepers are noisy, they require special insulating devices
for signalling, and their maintenance is difficult. Furthermore, steel sleepers are sensitive to
chemical attacks and particularly vulnerable in lines close to industrial and coastal areas. All the
above disadvantages have led to the economic devaluation and to the gradual withdrawal of steel
sleepers, particularly in Europe.
b. Timber sleepers
Timber sleepers distribute loads better than other sleeper types. They are accordingly recommended
for tracks laid on fair or poor quality subgrade, where concrete sleepers would require a
comparatively greater thickness for the ballast layer. Because of their higher cost and shorter
lifetime, their use in Europe is presently limited to instances where concrete sleepers are not used.
However, they are still extensively used in North America.
The kinds of wood presently used for timber sleepers include beech and oak from European trees,
and azobe from tropical ones. Pine tree timber has also been used in the past. Timber sleepers in use
by the various railways today are mostly of azobe tropical timber, which is stronger and more
durable. In underground tunnels, Australian jarrah hardwood sleepers have been used extensively.
The principal advantage of timber sleepers is flexibility and better load distribution. Timber sleepers
are accordingly recommended in the case of poor quality subgrades. Moreover, timber sleepers
provide good insulation which is important with special devices for signalling and electric traction.
Finally, compared to concrete sleepers, timber sleepers are shorter in height.
The disadvantages of timber sleepers include their relatively short lifetime, their comparatively
higher cost (in Europe, though the situation is inverse in other parts of the world) and their low
transverse resistance (a result of their low weight), thus precluding high speeds on their tracks.
c. Concrete sleepers
Concrete presents two weaknesses for its use in sleepers: brittle fracture and little fatigue resistance.
To overcome such disadvantages, it is required to place an absorbing material between sleepers and
rail and to use reinforcing bars inside the sleepers.
There are two types of reinforced-concrete sleepers.
Twin-block reinforced-concrete sleeper
The sleepers have two block of concrete in the extreme, in that block be installed the rail,
while in the central part the concrete was replaced by a connecting bar.
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Figure 3: Twin-block sleepers

Due to its large weight, the twin-block sleeper provides very good transverse track
resistance and allows high speeds. It keeps track gauge within satisfactory tolerances and
has a long lifetime.
Twin-block sleeper behaviour is less satisfactory when the ballast does not have the suitable
thickness and mechanical characteristics. Load distribution and flexibility are less
satisfactory with twin-block than with timber or monoblock concrete sleepers. In addition,
twin-block sleepers require elastic fastenings and because of their great weight, handling is
difficult. The twin-block sleeper (in contrast to the timber sleeper) requires special
accessories, so as to ensure the necessary insulation for signalling and electric traction.
Special attention should be given to the behaviour of the connecting bar. If the latter is not
appropriately placed and anchored, it may produce a maintenance hazard to staff working on
the track.
Monoblock prestressed-concrete sleepers
The monoblock sleeper has the following characteristics:
- It withstands alternating stresses better, since the stress on the concrete is always
compressive.
- It offers a reduced sleeper height at the central part, since the steel bars do not have
to be located, as in reinforced-concrete, as far away from the neutral axis as possible
- It allows a reduction of the steel used, in comparison to the twin-block sleeper
- It is generally lighter, compared to the twin-block sleeper; this fact, however,
reduces transverse resistance.
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Figure 4: Monoblock sleepers

Monoblock sleepers present a similar behaviour to that of the twin-blocks. They maintain
the track gauge in a satisfactory manner and have a long lifetime. They require elastic
fastenings and special accessories for signalling. However, monoblock sleepers distribute
loads better than twin-blocks, but not as well as timber sleepers. Their transverse resistance
is lower than that of twin-blocks, but higher compared to timber sleepers; monoblock
sleepers provide also a good surface for the maintenance inspection staff.
Fastenings
The word fastening refers to all elements to ensure the rail-sleeper connection. Fastening should
provide the following properties:
- Keep track gauge and transverse rail inclination on the sleeper constant,
- Transfer loads from the rail to the sleeper
- Attenuate and dampen vibrations caused by train traffic
- Easy installation and maintenance
- Electrical insulation
- Resilience and adequate deflection
- Avoidance of abrasion between components and of over-stressing
- Adequate corrosion resistance
- Reasonable cost and lifetime compatible to that of sleeper
- Resistance to vandalism
Fastenings are classified into rigid or elastic ones.
a. Rigid fastenings
Rigid fastenings are used only with timber or steel sleepers. In rigid fastenings the rail is connected
to the sleeper with bolts or nails. During train passage the rail compresses the sleeper and part of the
strain is plastic (i.e. it does not disappear when the load disappears), resulting in the creation of a
gap between nail head and rail. With successive train passages the gaps grow, causing a gradual
slackening of the fastening, which affects safety and may be the origin of a derailment. In addition
to plastic strain, high frequency vibrations caused by rolling stock traffic also contribute to the
widening of the gaps and the slackening of the fastening.
Rigid fastenings may be installed either without or with a seating plate, the latter being the
preferable solution.
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b. Elastic fastenings
The use of elastic fastenings is mandatory with concrete sleepers and optional with timber and steel
sleepers. Two types of elastic fastenings may be distinguished:
-
Screw-type elastic fastenings. They have the advantage of great fastening strength and easy
maintenance and replacement. They have the disadvantage that correct installation is affected
by local conditions. The common elements are:
o A threaded element (a), which is used to apply a force to a spring steel
element, this threaded element being removable from the sleeper,
o The spring steel element (b), which can be a bar or a plate,
o A pad (c) between rail and sleeper to absorb vibrations, to provide a
suitable layer between rail and sleeper and also electric insulation,
o Insulating elements (d) to isolate electrically the rail from any metallic path into the
sleeper.
Figure 5: Elastic fastenings

-
Spring-type elastic fastenings. They are less adaptable than screw-type fastenings, but less
affected by installation conditions, and any error is easily located visually. The common
elements in spring-type fastenings (which should not require any subsequent maintenance)
are:
o Some form of anchorage (a) fixed in the sleeper, generally at the time the sleeper is
manufactured,
o A spring steel element (b) to generate clamping forces on the rail foot,
o A rail pad (c) between rail and sleeper to attenuate forces and stresses and to provide
electrical insulation, which is necessary for the signalling system,
o Insulators or a layer of insulating materials (d), to provide electrical insulation between
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the rail and any metallic path, such as via (a) and (b), to the sleeper.
Figure 6: Resilient pads

An important element of the fastening is the resilient pad. Resilient pads are used between rail and
sleeper or between rail and concrete slab. When a baseplate is used (both in ballasted and nonballasted tracks), then pads are used between baseplate and sleeper or between baseplate and
concrete slab. They are called baseplate pads.
Pads must fulfil a number of functions and properties:
- Load distribution.
- Vibration attenuation
- Resilience
- Resistance to creep
- Electrical insulation
- Durability
Switches and crossing
A fundamental characteristic of railway is the one degree of freedom of the movement of the rail
vehicle on the track. However, trains must have the possibility to change course from one track to
another. This is realized by so-called switching devices, defined as the equipment and parts thought
which the direction of movement of a rail vehicle can be change without interrupting its course.
Switches and crossing are a track fundamental part with different geometrical characteristic to the
linear track but the same components too (rail, sleepers and fastening), with different geometrical
characteristic. Switches and crossings are subject to more intense stresses that linear tracks.
Therefore, although the types of defects and required maintenance tasks are similar to those in
linear tracks, the behaviour and evolution of switches and crossings defects are different than those
in linear tracks, because of the harder stresses.
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Switching devices take a great variety of forms. In spite of their apparent complexity, they can be
distinguished into two basic forms, and a third combining the first two:
- Simple, or multiple turnouts, allowing a track to be split in two (sometimes in three) and
the moving rail vehicle to change course.
- Crossing, where two tracks meet at grade witch no change of course.
- Turnout crossing, combining the functions of turnouts and crossing.
Thus, the functions of switches and crossing are: (i) to enable rail routes to branch from or to join
up with one another; (ii) to provide flexibility within a route so that trains may move from one
track; and finally (iii) to enable vehicles to be sorted out, in order to respond efficiently to these
requirements. Switching and crossing must fulfil certain requirements, which include the following:
- Impose the fewest possible speed restrictions,
- Be sited exactly where operational exigencies demand,
- Provide maximum operational flexibility,
- Support axle weight required to be carried,
- Be cheap to manufacture, simply to lay, easily worked, robust and easy to replace,
- Resist wear, corrosion and decay, and require minimum maintenance,
- Be compatible with signalling requirements.
Figure 7: Crossings
2.4.1.2. Track bed
Ballast
The term ballast denotes the layer of crushed stone (and only in exceptional cases of gravel) on
which the sleepers rest. Furthermore, the ballast fills the space between sleepers as well as at some
distance (called ballast shoulder) beyond the sleeper ends.
The railway ballast performs several functions:
- Further distributing stresses transmitted by the sleepers.
- Attenuating the greatest part of train vibrations.
- Resisting track shifting (transverse and longitudinal).
- Facilitating rainwater drainage.
- Allowing track geometry to be restored and correcting track defects.
The above functions are clearly contradictory in some aspects, thus the ballast cannot completely
fulfil all of them. It could be argued that for good load bearing characteristics and added track
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stability, the ballast needs to be well graded and compact which, in turn, however, makes dispersal
of water more difficult, together with associated maintenance. A balance, therefore, among the
various functions that ballast is required to perform is aimed at.
Subballast
Under the ballast layer, the gavel subballast is laid and has the following functions
- Protection of the upper surface of the subgrade from the intrusion of ballast stones,
- Further distributing stresses,
- Further facilitating rainwater runoff,
- Imparting a transverse slope (commonly 3-5%) to the upper surface of the subgrade for
proper runoff.
The usual thickness of the gravel subballast layer is 15 cm. However, some railways do not use a
subballast layer and they simply use a greater thickness of the formation layer, which is placed on
top of the subgrade.
2.4.2. Substructure
The term substructure will be used to denote the subgrade together with structures like bridges,
tunnels, cuttings & embankments and drainages.
2.4.2.1. Subgrade
Subgrade is the layer below the subballast. It supports the stresses transmitted by the track to the
soil. The subgrade is the first layer of the soil in railway infrastructure. It has to be designed
according to the stresses that it will have to support.
Railway subgrade is particularly important in ensuring that track quality reaches the standard
necessary for the safe and comfortable operation of trains. Railway networks make serious efforts to
improve passenger comfort. These efforts, however, mainly concentrate on the railway track and
often disregard the fact that many problems appearing at track level are traceable to the subgrade,
rather than to the track.
Before the construction of the track, an analytical geotechnical study has to be performed. This
study will be required to define the design of the subgrade along the track line These studies
determine the soil characteristics such as soil type, hydrogeological conditions, and mechanical
strengths.
The design of the subgrade will take into account track loading (load per axle and track tonnage),
sleeper type and ballast thickness together with soil parameters: soil type, hydrogeological
conditions, and mechanical strengths.
In existing layouts built decades ago, it may be required to adapt the subgrade characteristics to
those required by higher speed and higher load per axle trains, which increase subgrade stresses. In
these cases, often the lower surface of the subballast and the upper surface of the subgrade have
formed a compact zone, which should be disturbed as little as possible. Therefore any intervention
in the subgrade should be limited to areas where particular problems have arisen and should be
scheduled, as much as possible, to be performed during periodical track maintenance. The decision
between improving the subgrade and increasing the ballast layer thickness should be the subject of a
technical and economic study.
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The railway subgrade should fulfill the following functions:

- Enable passenger and freight trains to run safety at the specified speed.
- Support the heavy axle loads of freight trains.
- Minimize future track maintenance costs.
These functions can be achieved by:
- Limiting settlements of the original ground and of the embankment filling.
- Providing stable mechanical behaviour under the train loads and the weight of the
earthworks.
- Ensuring that the condition of the subgrade does not deteriorate during its working life.
2.4.2.2. Structures
Structures include bridges and retaining walls. Their mission is to support the track.
The most common bridges are stone and masonry ones (19th century), steel ones (19th and early 20th
centuries) composite ones (20th-21st centuries) and concrete ones (20th-21st centuries). There are also
special structures for big spans (over 40 m) like arcs and suspended bridges.
The typology of retaining walls includes:
- Concrete Walls
- Rubble Walls
- Reinforced soil
Railway structure includes the structural design, structural analysis, structural construction and
maintenance of bridges and walls. This involves identifying the loads which act upon a structure
and the forces and stresses which arise within that structure due to those loads, and then designing
the structure to successfully support and resist those loads. The loads can be self weight of the
structures, other dead load, live loads, moving (wheel) load, wind load, earthquake load, load from
temperature change etc. The structural engineer must design structures to be safe for their users and
to successfully fulfil the function they are designed for. Due to the nature of some loading
conditions, sub-disciplines within structural engineering have emerged, including wind engineering
and earthquake engineering.
Design considerations will include strength, stiffness, and stability of the structure when subjected
to loads which may be static, such as furniture or self-weight, or dynamic, such as wind, seismic,
crowd or vehicle loads, or transitory, such as temporary construction loads or impact. Other
considerations include cost, constructability, safety, aesthetics and sustainable.
Reinforced soil is a flexible technique which can, in many instances, replace retaining walls or
structures. Reinforced soil is an assembly consisting of:
- The embankment edge.
- Good quality soil material.
- Metal bars or polyethylene bars.
- Concrete cover.
2.4.2.3. Tunnels
Tunnels are a special type of structure in the railway infrastructure.A tunnel is an underground
passageway, completely enclosed except for openings for egress, commonly at each end.
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The construction of a tunnel must start with a comprehensive investigation of ground conditions by
collecting samples from boreholes and by other geophysical techniques. A reported choice can then
be made of machinery and methods for excavation and ground support, which will reduce the risk
of encountering unforeseen ground conditions. In planning the route, the horizontal and vertical
alignments will make use of the best ground and water conditions.
In some cases conventional desk and site studies yield insufficient information to assess such
factors as the blocky nature of rocks, the exact location of fault zones, or the stand-up times of
softer ground. This may be of particular concern in large diameter tunnels. To gather more
information a pilot tunnel, or drift, may be driven ahead of the main drive. This smaller diameter
tunnel will be easier to support should unexpected conditions be met, and will be incorporated in
the final tunnel. Alternatively, horizontal boreholes may sometimes be drilled ahead of the
advancing tunnel face.
During tunnels exploitation, the geotechnical information should be kept for consultancy in case of
defect in the infrastructure. The geotechnical information from the original construction and the
new data from boreholes can help to determine the cause and, therefore, the solutions of almost all
of the problem arising in tunnels.
2.4.2.4. Cutting and embankment
When the soil is at a different level than the required for the track line it is necessary either to dig in
the earth or to provide earth to adapt the natural profile to the track line profile. In the first case
(digging), a cutting is required. In the latter, an embankment is constructed.
Before excavating any cut section, particular attention should be paid to the geological formations
in its path (especially in the case of diaclases), in order to disturb the geological formation
equilibrium as little as possible. Parameters to be considered when designing a cut section include
safety, cost, and adaptation to the aesthetics of the surrounding environment (and not the other way
around). The slopes of the cut sections are determined according to the results of the geotechnical
study. Protection by talus stabilization is usually attained by covering the slopes with shrubs or by
planting trees, thus at the same time achieving the merging of the works with the surrounding
landscape. Ground drainage is also required along the slopes, to avoid softening.
In the case of an embankment, the quality of geological formations under the planned embankment
should be also considered. If the ground slope is greater than 1:10, it is advisable to secure the
embankment base by using a step.
2.4.2.5. Drainage devices
The groundwater level modifies the subgrade characteristics. The railway authorities have tried to
determine, during climate changes, the maximum groundwater level.
In order to control the hydrogeological conditions on the railway, drainage devices are required.
Railway drainage affect to tracks, embankments, cuttings and walls. The type of infrastructure may
be providing a quick drainage of rainwater.
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2.5 Track degradation and failure

This section describes most representative defects and failures that can be found in tracks. The
structure follows the one implemented in section 2.4. First the degradation of the superstructure
(track and track bed) is detailed and then the deterioration of the substructure is described.
As mentioned above (section 2.4.1.1) switches and crossings include the same main components
(rail, sleepers and fastenings) than linear tracks. Therefore, although their defect evolution is
different because they suffer harder stressed, the types of defects are those of rail, sleepers and
fastenings. For that reason, no special section is devoted to switches and crossings defects.
Superstructure includes track and track bed. Regarding the track, on the one hand defects in the
elements of the track are described. On the other hand, defects in geometry are listed.
2.5.1.1. Defects in the elements of the track
This section describes track defects. Track is composed of rail, sleepers and fasteners. This section
is organised as follows. First, most commons defects in rail, sleepers and fasteners are detailed.
Special attention is focused on rail defects including the classification and codification of rrail
defects provided by the International Union of Railways (UIC, Union Internationale de Chemines
de Fer) and a description of rail defects.
Rail
The rail is the most important defect-prone element in the track.
The rail suffers from stresses that can cause defects and may bring it to failure. The total stresses
developed in the rail are the sum of:
- Stresses at the wheel-rail contact
- Stresses resulting from rail bending on the ballast
- Stresses resulting from bending of the rail head on the web
- Stresses resulting from thermal effect.
- Plastic stresses, remaining in the rail after the removal of external loads.
Those stresses gradually decrease the mechanical strength of the rail due to repeated loading. That
is called fatigue. Once the fatigue limit is reach, the rail is bring to failure.
Internal discontinuities of rail which may give rise to rail fatigue are called rail defects. Rail
alterations of a mechanical nature occurring under the influence of passing trains are also
considered defects. Rail defect should be clearly distinguished from track defects, the latter being
defined as the deviations of the actual form theoretical values of the tracks geometrical
characteristics. Track defects are exclusively the consequence of train traffic, they are of a
macroscopic and geometric nature and usually they are rectified by track maintenance. On the
contrary rail defects are due to initial manufacturing imperfections of the rail and in most cases are
non-reversible.
Rails may become defective in the track in anyone of the following ways:
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Broken rail: any rail which is separated into two or more pieces or a rail from which a piece
of metal becomes detached, causing a gap of more than 50 mm in length and more than 10
mm in depth in the running surface.
Cracked rail: any rail which shows anywhere along its stretch and irrespective of the profile
section involved one or more gaps of no set pattern, apparent or not, the progression of
which could lead to breakage of the rail fairly rapidly.
Damaged rail: any rail which is neither cracked nor broken, but which shows other defects
generally on the rail surface.
Rail defects may be located at rail ends, away from rail ends or in welding zones.
Below a codification of rail defects is provided together with a wide spectrum of them.
Codification of rail defects
Rail defects have been studied, classified and codified by the International Union of Railways.
Thus, broken, cracked and damaged rails are the object of a code that may comprise as many as four
digits:
- The first digit indicates:
- Defects in rail ends,
- Defects away from rail ends,
- Defects resulting from damage to the rail,
- Weld and resurfacing defects.
- The second digit indicates:
- The place, in the rail section, where the defect originated,
- The type of welding whenever weld or resurfacing defects are involved.
- The third digit indicates:
- The pattern of the defect in the case of a broken or cracked rail,
- The nature of the defect in the case of a damaged rail,
- The cause of the defect in the case of a damaged rail.
- The fourth digit makes it possible, as and when required, for a further classification to be
made by type of defect.
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Figure 8: Codification of rail defects
Description of rail defects

The main rail defects, which are the cause of the most serious risks of rail fatigue and can provoke
failure, are described below. They are classified as:
a) Defects in rail ends
b) Defects away from rail ends
c) Defects caused by rail damage
d) Welding and resurfacing defects
e) Rail wear
a) Defects in rail ends
Longitudinal vertical cracking (Rail defect UIC 113) which may expand and split the rail head in
two. This is a rail manufacture defect, it is detected by ultrasonic equipment and the affected rail
should be immediately replaced.
b) Defects away from rail ends
- Tache ovale (Rail defect UIC 211)
This corresponds to an initial internal oval discontinuity, caused by thermal effects during rail
manufacture. It expands to reach the rail surface. It then becomes visible on the web faces.
Breakage of the rail is imminent at this stage. This defect may be the origin of very serious
problems and even reach epidemic proportions in rails of the same manufacture. It is detected with
the aid of ultrasonic equipment. Most research work on rail fatigue focuses on this defect.
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Figure 9: Rail defect UIC 211 (tache oval)

- Horizontal cracking (Rail defect UIC 212)
Horizontal cracks along the rolling surface of the rail. They originate at the manufacturing stage
(initial internal discontinuities) and may cause local depression of the running surface. It is detected
either visually or by ultrasonic equipment.
- Rolling (running) surface disintegration (rail defect UIC 221)
Corresponds to a gradual disintegration of the rolling surface of the rail. Surface defects are of
metallurgical origin and can be detected during track maintenance inspections; affected rails are
replaced at scheduled maintenance sessions.
Figure 10: Rail defect UIC 221

- Short-pitch corrugations (Rail defect UIC 2201)
Their cause is train traffic and they consist of corrugations with a wavelength =3-8cm. They can
provoke many adverse effects: high frequency oscillation of the track, including resonance, and
leading to higher rail stresses, concrete sleeper fatigue with cracking in the rail seat area, loosening
of fastenings, accelerated wear of pads and clips, premature failure of ballast and the subgrade, and
increase by 5+15 dB (A) in noise level. This defect is detected either visually or by appropriate
recording equipment. It is repaired by passage of special equipment, which grinds and smooths the
rail.
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Figure 11: Rail defects UIC 2201 (on the left) and UIC 2202 (on the right).
- Long-pitch corrugations (Rail defect 2202)
They have wavelengths =8-30cm and occur mainly on the inside rails of curves having a radius of
600 m and smaller. This form of wear is the most common on suburban and underground railways.
Detection and repair processes are similar than those for short-pitch corrugations.
- Lateral wear (rail defect UIC 2203)
It affects outside rails of curves and results from rolling stock stresses. It takes a sinusoidal form
with a minimum value at right angle with the fishplated joints. Lateral wear becomes dangerous
beyond a certain point, because it affects the track gauge. The various railway networks specify the
permissible value of lateral wear of rail head.
- Shelling of the running surface (Rail defect UIC 2221)
Irregular deformation of the running surface is observed prior to the formation of shells, several
millimeters deep in the metal. The cross-section of these shells is extremely variable. Shelling is not
an isolated defect. It always occurs over a wide area. Detection is done either visually or by
ultrasonic testing.
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- Gauge-corners shelling (Rail defect UIC 2222)
The rails first show long dark spots randomly spaced out over the gauge corner of the rail head.
These spots are early signs of metal disintegration which, after a period of evolution, are
characterized by the formation of lips on the side face, of cracks and lastly of shelling in the gauge
corner which can sometimes be quite extensive. This form of shelling usually occurs along the
outside rails in curves lubricated to avoid lateral wear. It can be detected by visual inspection.

- Head Checks
Contact stresses are generally low in the crown area as this has larger profile radius in comparison
to the gauge side of rail. However, high contact stresses are generated on the gauge corner of the
high rail, which generally has curve radius from 1000 to 1500 m. Head checks may also occur in
tighter (less than 1000 m) curves near the gauge corner of the high rail.
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Head checks may also be found near the welds as welded profiles may have slight variations with
actual rail profiles. A slight variation in profiles has a big effect on contact stresses. Head checks
are surface initiated defects. Head checks generally occur at an angle of 30-60 degrees to the
longitudinal axis of the rail. If head checks are not controlled, they can cause a rail break.
Figure 14: Head checks

c) Defects caused by rail damage
- Bruising (Rail defect UIC 301)
This defect is due to traffic load and may be the result of various origins: derailments, dragging
parts, damaged tyres, handling operation, arcing, improper use of tools. Cracked and broken rails
must be replaced at the earliest opportunity.

- Faulty machining (Rail defect UIC 302)
It is due to traffic load and may have as origin the following: improper in-track drilling of foot or
web of rail, faulty cutting, etc. It is inspected visually and may lead to cracking and breakage of the
rail, which should be replaced soon after the problem has occurred.
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d) Welding and resurfacing defects

- Electrical flash-butt welding (transverse and horizontal cracking defect) (Rail defect UIC
411 for transverse defect and UIC 412 for horizontal defect).
Transverse cracking may lead either to an internal defect of the head or to a defect located in
the foot of the rail. Horizontal cracking develops in a curved shape in the web. Both
transverse and horizontal cracking are inspected visually (with a confirmation by ultrasonic
examination) and may lead to complete breakage of the rail. Fishplating should be urgently
carried out and defected rail should be replaced by a new one.
-
Thermit welding (transverse and horizontal cracking) and electric arc welding (transverse
and horizontal) defects. Defects due to thermit welding (transverse cracking (defect UIC
421) and horizontal cracking of web (defect UIC 422)) are similar, both in behaviour and in
treating, to defects occurring in the case of electric flash-butt welding. Defects due to
electric arc welding (transverse cracking (defect UIC 431) and horizontal cracking of rail
web (defect UIC 432)) are also similar to other welding defects.
e) Rail wear
With the traffic load about the rail there are a wear, this affect to the rail profile. There are two
limitations for the rail wear.
- Vertical wear. It reduces the rail section and consequently the rail resistance. The maximum
permissible vertical wear of the rail is a function of the maximum train speed and of traffic
load. There are regulations, in different countries, to limit the maximum permissible vertical
wear of the rail.
- Lateral wear. It reduces the rail section and consequently the rail resistance and affect to the
gauge of the track too. As in case of vertical wear, the maximum permissible lateral wear of
the rail is a function of the maximum train speed and of traffic load. There are regulations,
in different countries, to limit the maximum permissible lateral wear of the rail.
- Plastic deformation. The rail support high stresses during the train circulation. If those
stresses are greater than the elastic limit, a flange can appear in the rail head, because below
this flange, the stress limit may be exceeded.
Figure 17: Rail head with plastic deformation in initial state

If the stresses are much greater than the limit and they are repetitive, this flange appears as a lot
flange in the first 20-30 mm of the lateral head of the rail. These lips are a consequence of the
plastic steel displacement over the top surface of the rail head.
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Figure 18: Rail head with plastic deformation in advance state

Sleepers
The sleeper failures or defects depend on the type of sleepers (steel, timber or concrete). Most
typical defects in different kind of sleepers are detailed below:
Timber sleepers
Timber sleepers suffer from chemical and physical disintegration of wood though exposure to
alternate wet and dry conditions, heat and dust. They have a total lifetime between 20 and 40 years.
They have three big problems: (i) abrasion from the lines loads, (ii) humidity changes, and (iii)
attacks by fungi and insects.
The humidity changes made the timber expand and contract and can crack the external surface and
weakened the sleeper.
The attacks by fungi and insects can be totally stopped by creosote impregnation at high pressure
before the sleeper first use. This treatment let a 50 years lifetime if the railway loads are small.
The most commons fails of the timber sleepers are:
- Collapse of the base plates
- Widening of the fastening holes and longitudinal cracks
- Rust and water damage caused by rust of fasteners
The inspection must be done by operators walking along the rail. This task is usually accomplished
while maintenance operations on the track are taking place.
Steel sleepers
Defects in steel sleepers derive for sensitive to chemical attack particularly in industrial and coastal
areas. The steel sleepers in a non-aggressive environment have a lifetime of about 50 years. In
chemical aggressive environment this lifetime could be only a few years, by the accelerate
corrosion.
Concrete sleepers
This type of sleepers (twin-block and monoblock) overcomes the weaknesses of other two types of
sleepers. Defect in concrete sleepers are rare, on account of its strict quality control and testing in
manufacturing. Generally defect in concrete sleepers are consecuences of defect in the accessories,
like lost of fastening, pad or other defects that force concrete sleepers to work out of design
conditions.
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The estimated lifetime for the concrete sleepers are 50 years, which is the time form track total
renovation, but in fact the first concrete sleepers, placed in the 1950-1960 are going replaced just
nowadays and it seems maybe they could be recycled.
Fastenings
Defects in fastening depend on the type:
- Rigid fastening. There are two type of defects: (i) broken bolts or unhammer nails and (ii)
gap between nails and rail. Both defect are severe and may cause a derailment.
- Elastic fastening. Defects in this type of fastening may cause either break of a fastening
components or loosing of a fastening element.
2.5.1.2. Defects in the geometry of the track
This section describes defects in the geometry of the track. Geometry defects are always computed
as the difference between the theoretical and the real geometry. It is important to mention that
geometry defects are independent from elements defects.
Geometry track defects include:
- Longitudinal defect
- Transverse defect
- Horizontal defect
- Gauge deviations
- Track twist
Longitudinal defect
The longitudinal defect (LD), is defined as the difference between the theoretical and the real value
of track elevation and is given by the equation:
LD = Z th (T , x) Z (T , x)
The longitudinal defect is the most reliable in illustrating the effect of the vertical loads on track
quality and it is the principal factor (together with the transverse defect, see below, which
accompanies longitudinal defects) in determining the magnitude of the track maintenance expenses.
Transverse defect
The transverse defect (TD), is defined as the difference between the theoretical and the real value of
cant:
TD = ( Z int Z ext ) th ( Z int Z ext )
For rectilinear parts of track layouts, where curvature is zero, the transverse defect is the difference
of elevation between internal and external rail: Zint-Zext.
Horizontal defect
The horizontal defect (HD), is defined as the horizontal deviation of real position of the track from
its theoretical position. The horizontal defect depends on the transverse track effects (more than the
two previous types of defects) and on the characteristics and particularities of the rolling stock.
Gauge deviations
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Certain track gauge deviations, affected by the mechanical properties of track materials and the
particularities of the rolling stock, are permissible and will be given below. Gauge values acceptable
for standard gauge tracks are given in each track line.
Track twist
Along straight and circular sections (where cant is constant), four point of the track lying on two
transverse sections must lie in the same plane. Track twist is defined as the deviation of one point
from the plane defined by the other three.
If i and i+1 are two successive transverse sections of the track, spacers l apart (e.g. at the positions
of two sleepers), track twist is defined as the variations of the transverse defect per unit length.
TDi +1 TDi
Tracktwist =
l
The risk of derailment is prevented when the real value of twist is smaller than its critical value
causing derailment, which depends mainly on speed and to a lesser degree on the type of the track
equipment and of rolling stock.
It can therefore be concluded that the track twist and the transverse defect are not independent
parameters. However, they are often examined separately because track twist is one of the most
frequent causes of derailment, especially for speeds V<140 km/h. The main critical safety
parameter at these speeds is track twist, while other track defects previously mentioned are of lesser
importance.
2.5.1.3. Track bed
Ballast
The ballast and subballast are one of the most durable items of the railway, but their maintenance is
expensive because of the poor performances of the trains which execute it.
The ballast behaviour is elastoplastic, in function of the time and train loads. The cause of this
behaviour is the rearrangement of the stones to attain a state of equilibrium.
Due to the traffic loads, along the time, the rearrangement of the stone modifies the characteristic of
the ballast. With this rearrangement, the ballast loose his original characteristics, increase its
flakiness index, decrease its granulometric composition and loose partially the hard corners of the
stones.
These changes of characteristics worsen its behaviour with the traffic load with respect to stress
distribution, vibration attenuation and rainwater retention. To avoid such a deterioration of ballast
performance in this circumstances ballast cleaning will be required.
Some track defect, as longitudinal, transversal, horizontal ones, gauge deviation and track twist
could be repair with a heavy machine able to profile, compact and stabilize ballast.
This machine can also modify the ballast characteristic by generating heavy stresses in stones.
Nevertheless, due to fatigue, only a limited number of this kind of maintenance sessions can be
applied during the lifetime of the ballast because of the high intensity of forces applied to stones.
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Subballast
The subballast receives stresses from the stones of the ballast, which penetrate in the contact surface
between both with the traffic load. The above described maintenance session on ballast cause high
stresses in the subballast than those due to traffic loads on regular train operation, Furthermore
ballast maintenance session favour the penetration of stone into the subballast layer. Therefore the
characteristics of subballast are deteriorating during ballast maintenance and it may be necessary to
replace subballast when ballast is restored.
2.5.2. Substructure
2.5.2.1. Subgrade
The most important item here is the control of vegetation and weed. Vegetation appears on the
subgrade and on the ballast, and it contaminates the ballast and accelerates the decay of sleepers.
2.5.2.2. Structures
Like all the elements in the substructure, the bridges and structures needs ordinary maintenance,
they are built for last and they have no friction problems. However, the problems associated with a
structure fail (lost of human lives, long interruption for server, material losses) and the fact that
they can broke down impose periodical inspections and maintenance.
Most countries (USA, UK, France, Spain) have specific standards with impose to the
Infrastructure Manager the duty of have a structural inventory and to do periodical inspections.
Most important defects and failures in bridges and retaining walls are described below.
Bridges
There are two subjects to be considered regarding bridge degradation and failure: a general one,
with includes the foundations and pier failures and a specific one with involves the deck failure.
In some countries (like Spain or Belgium), it is mandatory to perform periodical load tests. The time
period between load tests depends on the type of the bridges: steel bridges requires load test every
10-20 years while concrete bridges dont need these test in more than 30 years.
Most general common problems arising in bridges are:
Foundations failure: the geochemical behaviour of slopes can be modifying by
groundwater flows or nearly building works.
Piers scour: the foundations of piers which are involve in a watercourse cold be
scoured by it. Periodical inspections must control the current state. Concrete or
breakwater can be used to repair water effects.
Deck problems. They are specific for each material. They are described below:
o Steel Bridges
Corrosion: Even thought the steel in bridges has corrosion protection
(galvanizing, painting), it could be corroded especially in water
accumulation points.
Fatigue: Fatigue occurs when a material is subjected to repeat loading
and unloading. If the loads are above a certain threshold, microscopic
cracks will begin to appear at the surface. Eventually a crack will
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reach a critical size, and the structure will suddenly fracture. The
fatigue will be affected by the structure geometry. Square holes or
sharp corners will lead to elevated local stresses where fatigue cracks
can initiate. Round holes and smooth transitions or fillets are
therefore important to increase the fatigue strength of the structure.
Non destructive techniques like ultrasonic and eddy currents must be
use to detect it. The steel structures are more affected than others ones
to fatigue because the differences between traffics loads and
permanent ones are larger in flexible and light structures (like steel
bridges) than in rigid massive ones (like concrete or stones ones). As
the difference between the maximum and minimum stresses is
remarkable, fatigue risk appears.
Welding revision: Spot welds are stressing concentrations points and
therefore they are more sensitive to fatigue and corrosion.
Concrete bridges
The most common problem of concrete bridges is the corrosion of the
reinforcing steel that can break the concrete cover. This problem can
be due to several reasons (like track, micro crack, carbonisation, and
alkali reaction). It can generate different troubles like passive
reinforcement breaking, pretested reinforcement crack, loss of tension
or steel relaxation.
Composite bridges
Composite bridges are made of concrete and steel. They can presents
problems described above.
Stone and masonry bridges
These bridges are built to last. They have chemical resistance and low
stress conditions, but they are not prepared to support high speed
charges or large axel charges. Furthermore they are several times
more expensive than other ones. Most common problems in these
bridges are:
Low support capacity: the stone and masonry bridges are old; most of
them build in the 19th or in the early 20th and are designed for low
charges and low speed, not for actual parameters.
Stone cracking: Concentrated charges, like a broke sleeper, can break
stones.
Stone throw out: the dynamic effects of the railway can throw the
stones out, overall with train speed over 160 km/h.
Singular bridges: Suspended ones, big arcs have specific problems.
Retaining Walls
There are a lot of different walls and walls types build in different ages:
- Concrete Walls
The concrete walls have similar problems to the concrete bridges but with a less reliable element:
the weep holes. If the weep holes are dirty, the water will be blocked behind the wall, increase the
earth pressure against the wall and weaken the soil behind the wall. Cleaning the weep holes is
other of the few possible preventive maintenance tasks in concrete walls.
-
Rubble Walls
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A well dimensioned rubble wall does not need maintenance, but usually these walls have not the
necessary section or are dirty with clay and they must be reinforced with more rubble. The only way
to prevent this failure is to avoid water with drainage ditches or deep drainage.
- Reinforced soil
The most common problems are the crack of the concrete cover and the outburst of the bars. The
broken elements must be replaced by new ones and the entire system reinforced by ground anchors
and reinforced concrete beams.
2.5.2.3. Tunnels
The tunnels maintenance, includes the geotechnical balance and the humidity control.
The geotechnical balance is determinate by the convergence rates (the evolution of the distance
between different points of the same cross section). Those distances are measured manually or by
an inspection train at 250 km/h at least monthly. When the measurement of the parameter arent
convergent, or the movement take a new law for movement parameter (alteration in the
geotechnical situation), a study of geotechnical balance is necessary.
Figure 19: Measurement points in a tunnel cross section.

The humidity control is important because of the electric voltage between catenary and rail. It must
be controlled by ditches, pipes and plumbs.
2.5.2.4. Cuttings and embankment
The soil works are usually implemented so that no maintenance is required. Nevertheless, if the
drainage fail or the geotechnical behaviour of the environment changes the soil works could be
severely damaged and could need maintenance.
Failures in the soil may appear as assessment and lateral movement in the track. A geothecnical
analysis is required to determine the reason of the assessment.
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Figure 20: Embankment building

2.5.2.5. Drainage ditches
The mechanical behaviour of the subgrade and the stability of the track are strongly affected by the
level of ground water, which should be at least 0.70 m-1.5 m below the level of the subgrade. If this
is not the case, then the level of ground water must be lowered by using ditches or deep drainage
systems.
Moreover in cold winter places where water could freeze, is very important to prevent the water
frozen, in order to prevent ballast slip.
Dirt in drainage devices is the most usual cause of failure that affects to the level of ground water.
2.6. Track maintenance and renewal
This section describes most representative maintenance and renewal tasks to be performed on the
track. The structure follows the one implemented in sections 2.4 and 2.5. First the maintenance and
renewal on the superstructure (track and track bed) is detailed and, after that, on the substructure
(subgrade, structures, tunnels, cutting and embankments and drainage ditches).
2.6.1.1. Track
Rail
Solutions of the rail defects depends on the size and the evolution of the defect. If appropriate
measures to solve the rail defect are not taken at initial stage, the defect enlarges and the effort (and
cost) required to restore track geometry increase. On the contrary, special attention to rail defects
from the very beginning is the key to track longevity and to the reduction of future maintenance
expenses.
There are three methods to eliminated rail defect:
- Rail weld recharge.
- Rail grinding.
- Rail replacement.
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Rail weld recharge

It is a technique for the cost effective repair of discrete defects on the running surface of rail. The
results archived are very much depending on the expertise of the operator.
Repair welding is the most cost-effective method of repair of defects of the tread and guide surfaces
of railway tracks and switches.
Two methods for welding repair could be used:
- Manual weld. Manual or automatic welding process with consumable electrode is used to
repair railway tracks. The welding technology is developed and monitored by the corporate expert
welding staff. The completed works are continuously checked by the use of non-destructive test
methods because the quality of work is function of the welding staff capacity. These processes are
used in contact surface to repair defect at the initial stage and it is always necessary to make a
grinding in the weld zone after the weld process.
Figure 21: Manual weld recharge in a head of turnout

- Union welding. This process is similar to joining a continuous welded rail. As in Manual
weld, it is always necessary to make a grinding in the weld zone after the weld process and before
the end of the repair works.
Figure 22: Welding in union of rail, and last grinding in the same union with manual grinding
machine
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Rail grinding
Rail is the single most valuable asset of railways. The wheel/rail interface of any railroad is a
sophisticated and much talked about subject. Primarily because of the cost involved in premature
rail change-outs. Typical problems encountered on all railroads include shelling, spalling, side wear,
plastic flow, dipped welds, corrugation and fatigue, as well as unique challenges of noise control
and ride quality.
Figure 23: Surface of contact in rail head before grinding, with small defect and after grinding,
where roughness can be seen on the grinding surface.
Rail grinding is considered the single most effective maintenance practice to control the effects of
rolling contact fatigue, restore profile, and maximize value from the rail asset.
The substantial return on investment from rail grinding is well documented and includes:
- Extended rail life
- Fuel savings
- Reduced surfacing cycles
- Extended track component life
- Reduced wear on rolling stock
- Increased axle loads
- Increased train speeds
- Improved ride quality and passenger comfort.
Railroads everywhere are facing continued challenges of maintaining track in shortened work
blocks with limited resources. A proper rail grinding program is a key component to a maintenance
plan.
Rail-grinding equipment may be mounted on a single self-propelled vehicle or on a dedicated rail
grinding train which, when used on an extensive network, may include crew quarters. The grinding
wheels, of which there may be more than one hundred, are set at controlled angles to restore the
track to its correct profile.
The machines have been in use in Europe since the early 1990s. They are made by specialist train
maintenance companies who may also operate them under contract.
The rail grinding could be made in large dimensions of rail line or only in a short location in a rail
line. There are different types of machine to adjust the rail profile to theory profile to short or to
large grinding work.
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Figure 24: Large grinding machine for massive grinding in track line, and medium grinding
machine for grinding medium distance of the rail.
Rail replacement
When the rail defects are very severe and the rail profile cant be recovery by other process, it is
necessary to replace the rail in the damage section. In this case it is always necessary to use welding
to join the new profile of rail with the existing one. After that, some local grinding on the join is
required to achieve appropriate rail profile.
Sleepers
Timber sleepers
The maintenance works include:
- Flanged holes sanitizing and filling with synthetic material
- Milling and impregnation of the support surfaces of the rail
There are two maintenance strategies for timber sleepers:
o Individual cyclic renewal:
In the USA, every 5-8 years, 6% of the timber sleepers are removed. The
renovation affect only to the damaged ones and it is necessary to move the
ballast around them.
This method could create different stiffness of the railway, decrease the
ballast quality and it is very difficult to automate.
o Total renewal:
In Europe, all the sleepers are changed together, every 20-25 years. The
ballast is replaced, and the less damaged sleepers are still used in secondary
lines.
Steel sleepers
They usually have no more maintenance than replace them when they are exhausted.
Concrete sleepers
They usually have no more maintenance than replace them when they are exhausted.
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Fastenings
The defects of fastenings (rigid or elastic) are usually isolated and must be repaired manually. The
reparations consist in the change of the fastening and in case of timber sleepers, filling the screw
hole with synthetic material.
On the other hand elastic fastenings can be modified, in order to correct horizontal rail deviations,
when there are detected in the rail geometry inspection.
Figure 25: Video image of wrong fastening.

All defects are usually corrected by new fastening. In the case of timber sleepers, it is usually
necessary to made a new hole and to introduce the bolt with resin to support the new fastening.
2.6.1.2. Track bed
Ballast
The ballast degradation is a complex mechanism that includes different ways:
Broken edges. The train loads, especially at the beginning of the exploitation, break the
stones edges, and decrease the material stiffness.
Mixing with fine soils and vegetation, which affect the drainage, decrease the stiffness and
accelerate the stone movements. The fine soils can be produced by stone cracks, subgrade
contamination, air transport or goods transport.
Stones displacement. The concentrated charges under the sleepers can displace the stones,
making an empty space just in the most solicited point.
When the ballast does not work perfectly, the track looses stiffness and vertical regularity. The
vertical defects of wavelength greater than 3 meters are usually due to ballast degradation. It must
be corrected by tramping machines.
The most important ballast characteristic is the stiffness; which can be measure as the inverse of the
deflexion, for clean dry ballast (UCI):
eN=e1(1+b log N)
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where:
eN= deflexion in N charge cycles
N= charge cycles
b= constant (-0.2 for individual sleepers and -0.43 for track grade)
e1= deflexion in the first charge
The initial deflexion for a T charge can be calculated:
et=a1+a0 log (T/(2*106))
(2)
where:
et= deflexion
a1 and a0 are constants for track condition:
Denomination
Good track
Medium track
Bad track
a0 (mm)
2-4
4-6
6-10
a1 (mm)
6-10
10-15
15-20
Equation (2) ignores some ballast characterises:

The angularity of the stones make the ballast stiffer
A step granularity makes the ballast more resistant to the fatigue.
The wet ballast is more deformable than the dry one.
For high frequency excitations (more than 40 Hz) the ballast are elasticliquid and can lose
its stability.
In the initial stages ballast suffers from fast deflexion.
The latter characteristic is the most dangerous one, and can create problems in small structures for
high speed trains. For this reason the natural frequency of these structures is limited by most of the
national bridges standards. In addition, this property can be useful for the tamping machine, with
can displace the ballast easily working at 35 Hz.
The ballast preventive maintenance operations can be resumed as follows:
(i) Restoration of its initial geometry or curb profile (every 1-2 years)
The restoration of the ballast geometry is performed by the ballast profiling machine which
is a special train which can pull, move or replace the ballast by its mechanical blades, and
give the ballast the adequate cross section profile.
Figure 26: Ballast profile machines

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(ii) Restoration of ballast under the sleepers (every 4-5 years):

The vibrations of trains slowly expel the ballast under the sleepers; the ballast tamper machine
must return it back by its blades. In addition, the tamper machine can restore the initial
sleepers position, the rail geometry and the vertical rail deviation.
Figure 27: tramping machine: the first arm fixes the rail and the second ones remove the ballast.
(iii) Clean the ballast from broken stones (every 12-15 years)
The ballast cleaning machines are able to reach around 25 cm bellow the sleepers and grab
stones smaller than 25 mm in order to replace them. The different ballast machines can work
together, in an only tramping train, which increases the performance of all of them.
The speed of the tramping and ballast cleaning machines is around 0.4-1 km/h.
When the rail vertical geometry tolerances fail in only a length the ballast corrective maintenance
could be done manually, by 8-9 workers with manual tramping machines.
Subballast
The maintenance of subballast in a local actuation is a manual work and may be associated with a
subgrade failure.
In large works of subballast replacement, associate to ballast replacemant, both works are jointly
performed by: i) ballast cleaning machine, ii) formation layer rehabilitation machine, iii) ballast
distributing and iv) profiling machine and stabilizing and consolidation machine.
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Figure 28: Formation layer rehabilitation machine
Figure 29: Formation rehabilitation machine scheme
2.6.2. Substructure
2.6.2.1. Subgrade
There are 3 methods to avoid vegetation on subgrade and ballast:

Mechanical pull out: this is an inefficient method
Chemical (hervicides)
Infrared and electromagnetic.
Spreading of herbicides on both sides of the track is conducted with the use of special rail vehicles.
This track is performed either once (on September-October) or twice (in autumn and spring) a year.
The most commonly used herbicide is chlorate. Staff working on the track should use special and
appropriate clothes and undergo annual medical examinations. Herbicides must have been tested
and approved by the relevant authorities. In urban areas and where protection of the ground water
level is necessary, additional restrictions must be set before deciding the use and type of herbicides.
The herbicides must be spread by maintenance trains at very low speed (20-40 km/h), in spray or
liquid format, taking all measures to prevent any environmental harm.
In addition to mechanical and chemical means, other methods have been
emerged recently, such as infrared or electromagnetic or microwave radiation which unfortunately,
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are not yet technically adapted for railway tracks, have a low rate of treatment, disrupt train running
and require 23 treatments per year.
2.6.2.2. Structures
Maintenance and renewal in bridges and retaining walls are explained below.
Bridges
The maintenance of bridges is corrective, and it is based on periodical inspections and few
preventive tasks (like painting of steel bridges).
The most general common maintenance are:
Foundations failure: The ad hoc solutions would be superficial or deep drainage,
foundations reinforcement or retaining walls.
Piers scour: Concrete or breakwater can be use to repair water effects.
Deck problems, with are specific for each material are:
o Steel Bridges
Corrosion: The maintenance works are usually the corrosion cleaning
and the application of a new layer of paint and protection.
Fatigue: this degradation form required a complex study and the
solution of the problem is specific for each structure.
Painting: the painting of painted steel bridges is one of the few
preventive tasks that can be performed on bridge.
Welding or joint degradation: the defect in joint of the structure
required activation in the join, generally the work are to review and
repair the joint with similar task to the original performance.
o Concrete bridges
The solutions must be designed for each case.
o Composite bridges
o The solutions must be designed for each case.
o Stone and masonry bridges
The problems of these bridges are:
Low support capacity. There is no reinforcement option for these
structures, and the only solution is to demolish and build again with a
modern design.
Stone cracking and Stone throw out: The maintenance for lost or
broken stones is to fill the empty place with concrete.
o Singular bridges: Suspended ones, big arcs, etc. have specific maintenance
task.
Retaining Walls:
There are a lot of different walls and walls types built in different ages:
o Concrete Walls: The most common task is cleaning the weep holes which is one of the few
preventive maintenance task.
o Rubble Walls: A well dimensioned rubble wall does not need maintenance, but usually
these walls have not the necessary section or are dirty with clay and they must be
reinforced with more rubble. The only way to prevent this failure is to avoid water with
drainage ditches or deep drainage.
o Reinforced soil: The broken elements must be replaced by new ones and the entire system
reinforced by ground anchors and reinforced concrete beams.
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2.6.2.3. Tunnels
The rupture of geotechnical balance must be corrected by strong local reinforcements.

2.6.2.4. Cuttings and embankment
In old existing rail lines, maintenance on cuttings and embankments is performed only on a
corrective basis, once a problem is detected. In new lanes, in situ instrumentation can be placed at
certain points, during the construction of the track, in order to be able to monitor and evaluate the
subgrade condition once the rail line is on service. Such subgrade instrumentation can be in situ
read by techniciansor, in some cases, it can be automatically sent by GPRS communication. As
instrumentation is expensive, this procedure is applied only in new lines with heavy traffic.
Figure 30: Damaged embankment, the bad drainage move the soil just under the ballast
2.6.2.5. Drainage ditches
The maintenance of the ditches and drainage system consist mainly in cleaning it.
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3 Track Measurement
Once the different elements of the track are presented together with a description of most significant
defects and maintenance and renewal tasks, this section focuses on actual measurement techniques
to evaluate the track condition. If measures are within the threshold limits, then train operation is
safe and complies with an adequate level of comfort. Otherwise, maintenance tasks should be
carried out.
This section describes:
Techniques used to evaluate defects in the different elements of infrastructure within the
scope of the ACEM-Rail project. As in previous sections, the track includes the
superstructure and substructure.
Techniques used to analysed the track geometry.
The concept of integrating as many measurement instruments as possible into

commercial trains so that inspections can be performed by regular-on service trains.
While this section describes some measurement and inspection techniques widely used in the world,
Section 4 Railway Inspection Techniques focuses on inspection techniques that have to be further
developed or adapted in order to be embarked into commercial trains.
3.1 Measurements and evaluation of track defects
This section describes several measurements techniques used to evaluate track defects. These
techniques are based on ultrasonic, laser and cameras. In many occasions, inspection is performed
by operators walking along the track
Measurements techniques are presented following the same structure of Section 2 (subsection 2.4,
2.5 and 2.6). First, those techniques used in the superstructure are described and then those
appropriate for substructure inspections.
3.1.1 Superstructure
3.1.1.1. Track
Rail
Measurements techniques widely used to evaluate rail profile are: Ultrasonic and Laser.
Ultrasonic
Ultrasonic inspection of rails is based on using multiple UT probes with different angles for
maximum coverage of railway section. The results from each probe are stored with the respect to its
position along the rail, depths and amplitude. The map created in such case provides a pattern for
each artefacts laid in the rail: ball holes, drilled holes, and, for sure, the defects. There are some
illustrations of UT inspection results below:
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Figure 31: Artificial defect in rail head used for calibration and system testing
Figure 32: Star crack around of bolt hole.

The most common configuration of the UT probes is shown below:
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The advantages of the UT rail inspection of the high inspection speed, the very good coverage of
rail cross section, and the minimum time possession due to use of high speed inspection wagon ( up
to 80-100 Km/h).
The disadvantages of UT inspections are:
relatively high cost;
the evaluation of the final results depends very much on the experience of the
operator;
Large amount of water is required to be used as coupling material for UT. Some of modern systems
are equipped with the special wheels where UT probes are installed inside of it. Such systems
require much less water consumption, though the cost of wheel and speed limitations is still an
issue.
Laser
The method of laser triangulation is used for rail profiles and gauge measurements. The instruments
are mounted on the bogie of a measurement train. These instruments are also increasingly used on
grinder trains, to improve the process and to eliminate operators walking along the track to verify
the final result.
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Figure 33: Rail profile and gauge measurement instrument

The rail profile measurement for verifying the wheel-rail contact configuration requires a much
higher accuracy than the measurement for assessing the rail wear. Accurate instruments allow the
computing of important parameters, like the equivalent conicity, for entire lines. These parameters
are fundamental for the global modelling of the train-track system, as planned in the ACEM Rail
project. These parameters are well defined in the UIC519 standard. The UIC518 standard, one of
the most important ones to verify if a train is suitable for running, also defines limit values for these
parameters.
The following figure shows the result of the rail profile processing according to UIC519 norm.
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Figure 34: Typical result of a rail profile processing according to UIC 519 norm
Corrugation measurement is normally based on laser triangulation techniques. Rails corrugation is a
source of vibrations and noise, and must be eliminated by grinding. Different techniques have been
developed to:
Just detect the corrugation, and/or

Measure the corrugation amplitude. An amplitude measurement allows a more accurate
planning of the works, because it allows a better evaluation of the necessary grinding time.
Nevertheless, the corrugation detection gives a rough evaluation of the amplitude, thus the
result may not be very different.
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Corrugation detectors are based on accelerometers or on the measurement of the primary

suspension movement (the bogie mass is supposed to filter the corrugation out). Those
accelerometers determine the position of rail defect while the laser measurement evaluates the
corrugations amplitude.
Sleepers
The inspection of sleepers is currently a human operation. Defects in track gauge may show a
sleepers defect, but there are not any commercial settled instrument for sleepers inspection.
Fastening
Fastenings can be inspected by visual cameras. The main goal for using images of the track is to
eliminate, or reduce as much as possible, the visual inspection carried out by workers walking along
the track to detect faults, missing components, etc. The state of the art of these instruments does not
yet allow a complete and safe elimination of the inspection done by humans, but helps and, also,
allows detecting a number of risky situations difficult to detect by the human eye.
Appropriate image processing software can detect some defects in fastenings. Other defects, such as
pad deterioration cannot be automatically detected, and only human resources are worthed.
Switches and crossing
Switches are the most complicated and delicate component of the track. All the elements in the
track present specific characteristics if they are part of a special track layouts like switches and
crossings. These specific characteristic are due to the track geometry required in these layouts.
Inspections in switches and crossings have been purely manual until now, because no instrument
existed able to deliver the many measurements required. The situation is now changing, thanks to
improvements in cameras, lasers, embedded computers and inertial packs.
The following figure shows such an instrument for switches and crossings inspection.
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Figure 35: System for switches measurements

It has to be highlighted that the switches measurement from an automatic train needs a very
sophisticated train localization system, able to navigate in the station and to identify every measured
switch. This system now exists, thus the usage of the measurements is possible actually.
3.1.1.2. Track bed
The inspection of track bed and subgrade require different procedures. The track bed is visible from
de train and can be monitored by artificial vision while the subgrade is not always visible, it is not
homogeneous and its problems are often more complicated than those of the track bed.
The track bed inspection is nowadays partially automatic with artificial vision systems which can
measure profile of the ballast curb and surrounding track area. These systems could be placed in
inspection trains but, for the moment, not in commercial high speed trains. However, the deflexion
of the ballast can be inferred from the long wave rail vertical defects.
Figure 36: ballast curb

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3.1.2. Substructure
3.1.2.1 Subgrade
The subgrade inspection is currently a human operation. Maintenance in the subgrade is so
expensive that it is only performed in case of failure. In this case, a geotechnical study of failure is
required.
3.1.2.2 Structures
The structure inspection is currently a human operation. In many countries is mandatory an annual
basic inspection and 5-year periodic main inspection for bridges and tunnels. There are different
inspection techniques for specific structures. The type of structure and the characteristic define the
inspection techniques and the analysis.
3.1.2.3. Tunnels
The most common technique to measure the tunnels clearance is a rotating range finder. It actually
measures a helical. The helical pitch depends on the rotating speed and the train speed. The
minimum detected object dimension is the result of the rotating speed, the train speed and the
sampling frequency.
Figure 37: Principle of tunnel geometry measurement by a rotating range finder.
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A more sophisticated system had been developed based on optical laser triangulation technology
which is complemented with vision solutions. It allows the inspection and analysis of the
infrastructures status. In a tunnel, this system can measure the gauge width and inspect the tunnel
wall. Furthermore, the combined performance of laser and vision technologies enhances inspection
capability and advanced analysis of not only tunnels, but also bridges, underpasses, pylons, walls
and any other obstacle which can cross the clearance profile.
Figure 38: Tunnel measurement equipment
Figure 39: Tunnel image of measurement equipment

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3.1.2.4 Cutting and embankment

The inspection in cutting and embankments is currently a human operation. The techniques to
evaluate the state of such elements are used only in case of failure. It also carries a geotechnical
study of failure.
3.1.2.5 Drainage ditches
Again, the inspection of drainage ditches is currently a human operation. The techniques to evaluate
the state of such elements are used only in case of failure.
3.2 Measurements and evaluation of defects in track geometry
Track geometry defects are the source for high dynamic forces exchanged between the train and the
rails. In most cases such defects are not considered enough to trigger a maintenance activity. The
safety or comfort related activities are supposed to be automatically covering the issue. Actually,
this is only partially true. This is one of the reasons for a transition to a maintenance based on an
accurate modelling of the running dynamics, as planned in the ACEM-Rail project.
Nowadays two methods are currently in use for measuring the track geometry:
Versine, or 3 points, or chord method
Inertial method (laser)
The versine method was widely used before the inertial packs reached the current level of accuracy,
reliability, small dimensions, all for an acceptable cost. The inertial method is almost universally
adopted for new systems, thanks to the evolution of the inertial packs.
The reason for the transition from the versine to the inertial method is easily understood comparing
the transfer functions of both of them. In the following figure two different configurations for the
versine method (red and green) are shown and compared, as a reference, to the very flat transfer
function of the inertial method (blue).
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Figure 40: Transfer functions for the different track geometry measurements.
It is easy to see that many wavelengths cant be measured by the versine method, and also that long
waves (important at speed exceeding 160 km/h) are only measured by the inertial method.
In order to evaluate track geometry, some measurement instruments are normally mounted on two
types of vehicles:
Special (and expensive) measurement trains
Low speed, inexpensive vehicles
Measurement trains are normally managed centrally, and distribute the results to a central data base
and to the regional maintenance offices. On the other hand, low speed, inexpensive vehicles are
normally assigned to every regional maintenance office to allow prompt measurement in critical
area, checking the works done by contractors, etc. It is important to recall that the measurement
train could be far away, and it could have its own work plan. Changing the work plan and moving
the train would be expensive and inefficient).
The track geometry measurements are defined by the EN13848 international standard, as a good,
starting point, although some accuracy defined in this standard is not sufficient for modelling the
train-track interaction. The following figure shows the result of the track geometry measurement
and of some post processing. In this case, the post processing is the classic RMS method over 200
metres stretches. Stretches exceeding the allowed threshold are highlighted in red.
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Figure 41: Typical result of a track geometry measurement.

Others non-contact track measuring system, such as optical and laser methods are fully compliant
with the EN-13848 international standard, and offer highly accurate measurements at speeds of up
to 360 km/h.
Figure 42: System for gauge track measurement.

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3.3 The "measurement train" concept

Most of the infrastructure inspection is currently carried out by the so called measurement trains.
A measurement train carries a wide variety of instruments. Actually, different railways have
adopted very different configurations. Some maintenance actors prefer having quite specialized
trains, e.g. one for the track, one for the catenary, one for the signalling and telecommunications.
Others prefer integrating everything on a single train (to take better advantage of every
measurement run). In any case, these trains are running on the entire network of an administration
on a planned, routine, basis, delivering the data every N days (where N normally depends on the
line class).
The following figures show a block diagram of an integrated measurement train. Only a few
instruments are shown, to make the figures readable, but it easy to imagine how the system can be
expanded.
Figure 43: Block diagram of a measurement train
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Figure 44: Possible extension of a measurement train within ACEM Rail.

3.3.1 The "unattended measurement" concept
The new idea is to use trains in commercial service to perform inspections on the track is taken
more adepts every day. This way to carry out maintenance would save cost based on the following
facts:
expensive measurement train wouldnt be required;
cost of performing the operation (crew, traction, etc) would be saved;
slots for maintenance operations, difficult to find on busy lines, wouldnt be required.
Therefore, the track availability for service will increase.
Moreover, because the train would be on service, normally going up and down the same line
everyday, the frequency of the measurements would be high.
To perform inspections of the track using on-service trains, many of them must be equipped with
the instruments to cover the network, normally one equipped train for each line. Moreover, the
localization equipment becomes very critical: special techniques must be used, in particular, the
GPS, even where available, does not provide the necessary resolution. The cost of the instruments is
more than compensated by the savings in the train and relevant operational expenses.
Obviously such an automatic system is complicated to design, build and manage. The reliability of
every component must be much higher than the reliability normally accepted for a measurement
train. A large scale experiment on this subject started years ago in the UK (about 30 trains to be
equipped), eventually it failed, probably due to unreliable components and wrong software
architecture. Other experiments are known, but none is in commercial operation at this time.
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Evaluating track condition using on-service trains can deliver very useful data for an improved
maintenance strategy:
Better trends (more accurate)
Immediate verification of the works
Early detection of unpredictable faults
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4 Data System
This section overviews the management of all information since the capture of data regarding the
track state to the development of plans and schedule to perform maintenance tasks. It presents the
functioning of real railway system. As it is shown below, the coordination of different procedures
involved can be improved. This is one of the goals of the ACEM-Rail project.
4.1 Introduction
The first task required in the track maintenance process is the inspection of the state of the
infrastructure. As explained above, railway inspection is still very much human driven. Information
on the condition of the railway infrastructure can come from:
a) Operators walking along the track or drivers alerts.
b) Automatic systems managed by regional railway offices. Usually they are small vehicles
(often two axles) equipped with track geometry evaluation instruments, and, sometimes,
catenary, inspection instruments.
c) Automated systems managed by central railway administrator. Nowadays, these systems are
complex and expensive measurement trains that cover the entire national network.
Data collected by means a) and b) above are managed by the regional maintenance offices directly,
on paper (reports, plots), or in electronic format.. Localized defects (e.g. missing fasteners), or
distributed defects (e.g. geometry defects) are evaluated by rather simple algorithms and ranked by
severity levels.
Data collected by means c) are normally divided in two categories, in real time:
Serious faults: an immediate action is required. The on-board crew calls in real time the
regional maintenance office to alert it. More rarely, a message is sent automatically from the
on-board computers to some ground based computer distributing the alert messages to the
relevant offices, based on the measurement train localization.
Other faults: the reports are downloaded (on paper and files) at the end of the day and delivered
to a central data base and to the regional maintenance office.
In any case, large amount of data are generated regarding infrastructure conditions. The
interpretation of this information has been traditionally done by skilled staff. This human operation
is lengthy, laborious and potentially hazardous and the results are strictly dependent on the
capability of the observer to detect possible anomalies or recognize critical situations. Hence, the
need of automating the interpretation of data has motivated the development and use of AI
techniques for the analysis of infrastructure state, on the one hand, and for the planning and
scheduling of the maintenance tasks, on the other.
The analysis of data of all the processes involved since the inspection of track condition to the
planning of maintenance operations can be divided into:
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Sensor data analysis.

Data measurement transmission.
Data measurements analysis and threshold evaluation.
Maintenance evaluation.
Maintenance planning and scheduling.
4.2 Sensor data analysis.

Sensors collect information on track state which is processed by appropriate software to provide
measurements on the railway condition. All sensor manufacturers in the market provide adequate
software so that qualified staff can interpret the measurements. Mathematical algorithms can be
applied to sensor signals in order to convert the physical magnitude evaluated into a measure of the
element state.
4.3 Data measurement transmission.
If data on track state are captured by a train or a dedicate vehicle, these data has to be transmitted to
the central analysis station. Most usually data are transmitted before any processing of information.
Nevertheless, some pre-processing could be performed on the capturing vehicle.
The central station is usually a local station, for a part of network. Data is transmitted from the
inspecting vehicle to the central station. Traditionally, the information was storage in a disc in the
vehicle and then, the disc was handed to the staff in the station. Nowadays, a lot of communication
system can be used (Wifi, GSM, GPRS, radio, etc).
Data on infrastructure condition is review by qualified inspector in order to determine the status of
the track and the necessary maintenance.
The automation level of the measurement and maintenance system of the railway company define
the information flow.
Figure below shows an example of transmission data in a network. There are companies with better
information flow and others with worse management of data.
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Simple measurement
vehicles (managed by
regional organization)
Measurement trains
(centrally managed)
Walking
inspectors,
drivers, etc.
u rg en t
actio n
req u ired ;
real tim e
m essag e
REGIONAL
MAINTENCE
OFFICE
CENTRAL DATA
BASE
Figure 45: Sketch of data processing

4.4 Data measurement analysis and threshold evaluation.
Once the information on infrastructure condition is storaged, it has to be evaluated in order to
decide what tasks have to be performed. Currently, almost every measurement or observation on the
infrastructure is evaluated on the basis of thresholds. One or more thresholds are defined, to create
fault severity levels and allow maintenance activity decisions consistent with the severity level.
These criteria apply for figures as heterogeneous as the gauge (measured by an infrastructure
monitoring train) and the consecutive missing fasteners number (e.g. counted by an inspector).
Computed figures are also used (e.g. RMS value of any track geometry figure). In this case, the
decisions are also taken based on thresholds.
After having collected all data from infrastructure monitoring train and from human agents, a table
like the following is created. The example does not match any real table, but is a good
representation of an average situation.
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Defect description
localization (Km)
severity
low
gauge 200 m RMS
1.5
gauge peak value
1.6
longitudinal alignment 200 m RMS short waves
3.8
short twist
3.8
number of consecutive missing fastners
12
head-checks per 100 m
17
gauge 200 m RMS
17.4
med. high
*
*
*
*
Actually, the above table is quite often only "virtual" because the usual procedure is that different
rows in the above table are created in different places, by different entities and never put together in
a single sheet. The reason is that different figures impact on different maintenance actions, decided
by different agents.
This situation would apparently lead to a very uncoordinated and inefficient maintenance activity.
Actually, the situation is much better than it seems, because the processes have been slowly tuned in
a century of cumulated experience. As a matter of fact, the main communication links between the
different departments exist, and thus the maintenance plan is the result of a coordinated decision
process.
The process tuning has affected more the organization and less the algorithms: the algorithms
remain simple; every function is a function of a single variable. Quality figures combining more
than one measurement are quite rare, and used more for statistics than for decision making.
Based on the above described situation, there is much room for improvement in:
the algorithms to create a more comprehensive set of parameters describing the infrastructure
state.
the maintenance decision process: from a process where every decision is based on a few
variables (and somehow coordinated afterwards), to a process where every decision is based on
the global situation.
4.5 Maintenance evaluation

Once the information on infrastructure condition has been analysed and compared with threshold
levels, a list of maintenance tasks is generated. Each task in the list is scored according to a severity
level which indicates how urgent the task is.
Tasks in the list are executed taking into account their severity and available resources. Once tasks
are executed, they are deleted from the list so that it includes pending tasks.
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4.6 Maintenance planning and scheduling

Once a list of pending maintenance tasks is generated, a planning and scheduling for the execution
of these tasks must be done taking into account available resources and rail services. It is important
to recall that maintenance tasks need to take possession of the track.
Maintenance plans are usually adapted and accomplished in a dynamic way by regional offices and
in a weekly basis. In cases of corrective maintenance or severe defects the plan is modified. The
severity is often dependent on the class of the rail service. This daily adaptation of maintenance
plans, sometimes based on urgent needs, is responsible for a lot of inefficiencies in the resources
allocation.
4.7 Algorithms and tools

Conventional railway track combines materials such as rail, rail pads, sleepers, ballast and subballast, in a structural system. For planning track maintenance and renewal, this railway track
system is periodically inspected in order to detect defects relating to the sleepers, fasteners, rail, and
special track work and ballast section. A large amount of data is collected during inspection
operations. Before the implementation of the AI techniques, classical forms of data interpretation
involved a skilled human interpreter. This human operation is lengthy, laborious and potentially
hazardous and the results are strictly dependent on the capability of the observer to detect possible
anomalies or recognize critical situations. Hence, the need of automating the interpretation of data
has motivated the use of AI techniques. Many companies provide products using AI techniques for
planning track maintenance and renewal to the railway industry. These products are handling the
interpretation problem using machine vision, neural networks or expert systems, and the results
produced are doing quite well for the properly maintenance of railway system. Companies like
bvSys, Mermec, Zetica, Beena Vision, GEC Alsthom, Qinetiq, Ensco and so on, provide their own
systems and solutions based on AI techniques. However, there are companies specialised in AI
software that directly market tools for building "ad-hoc" intelligent applications (Google-AI
companies, 2011). Some of these companies and their products are described below.
XpertRule Software Ltd.
XpertRule Software Ltd was formerly known as Attar Software Limited. XpertRule develops
software as a service based advanced business rules management and expert system software
solutions. It is specialised in expert systems, rule induction and fuzzy logic. XpertRule offers
software products to develop, maintain and deploy rule based applications. Among its main
products, we can refer to Knowledge Builder. It is an enterprise strength environment for
developing and deploying knowledge-based applications and components. Knowledge-based
applications are software components which incorporate rules, expertise, know-how, procedures,
policies and regulations which can collectively be called "Business Rules". Almost all of the
software development environments targeted at developing knowledge solutions tend to specialise
in addressing a certain class of applications. Knowledge Builder is unique in being an environment
that can automate any knowledge based function within an organization from front office to back
office. XpertRule Knowledge Builder delivers automated learning from data as an alternative to
manual knowledge acquisition, deriving new patterns and relationships that both enhance your
understanding of your business processes, and enable better decisions in future. It also delivers
Rule-based, case-, and case-based reasoning as well as fuzzy logic (XpertRule, 2011).
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Logic Programming Associates Ltd.

Logic Programming Associates (LPA) is one of the world's longest established software houses specializing
in logic and artificial intelligence software. LPA products have been used in a wide-range of commercial and
research applications including legal document assembly, environmental engineering, information
modelling, disease diagnosis, fault diagnosis, hardware simulation. LPA provides a lot of AI toolkits (LPA,
2011), in particular:
Flex expert system toolkit: an expressive and powerful expert system toolkit which supports
frame-based reasoning with multiple inheritance, rule-based programming and data-driven
procedures fully integrated within a logic programming environment. Flex includes support
for different types of rule-based inference. The main two are forward-chaining production
rules, ideal for data-driven reasoning and backward-chaining rules best suited for goal-based
deduction.
Flint (Fuzzy Logic INferencing Toolkit): a versatile fuzzy logic inferencing system that
makes fuzzy logic technology and fuzzy rules available within a sophisticated programming
environment. Flint supports three treatments of uncertainty, namely: Fuzzy logic, Bayesian
updating and Certainty factors.
VisiRule: a graphical tool for developing and delivering business rules systems and
components simply by drawing the decision logic. Visirule "draw" the logic of your
application as a decision flowchart. It can help to build rules-based systems for modelling
and automating decision-making processes.
Case Based Reasoning (CBR) Toolkit: is a collection of routines, supplied in the form of an
API, which support the retrieval of similar cases within relational databases such as Access,
Oracle, SQL Server etc. The LPA CBR toolkit assumes a database of previous records,
stored in a relational database. Given a desired record to look for, the CBR toolkit provides
routines which will find records deemed close to the desired record. These can then be
viewed in order of closeness with the ability to affect the notion of how closeness is
computed.
LPA Data Mining Toolkit: a collection of routines, supplied in the form of an API, which
support the discovery of rules and patterns within relational databases. For any given target,
this will count each row to determine how important and how much influence each column
exerts on the target. The result is an ordered list of elementary conditions which are deemed
to be influential. The LPA Data Mining toolkit then lets you explore how well these atomic
conditions combine in terms of producing candidate rules.
Acquired Intelligence Inc.

Acquired Intelligence offers a full range of software development services, from knowledge engineering to
system development and deployment with a focus on web-enabled database applications. It offers a software
package called Acquire, which helps ordinary people build and maintain expert system applications. It uses a
step-by-step method to acquire and represent knowledge, but eliminating the need for specialized training.
Acquire provides an editor to build production rules, but it also provides the capability to represent expert
behavior as singular, specific patterns of inputs matched to one consequence. This pattern-based approach to
knowledge acquisition works well because people are much better at recognizing things than they are at
recalling them (AII, 2011).
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COGNISYS Consultants Inc.

COGNISYS is an artificial intelligence company specialised in expert systems located in Montreal. This
company offers a wide range of products and services. One of them is Sophos, that is a software tool for
development of applications based on knowledge. A special focus is put on knowledge acquisition and it
organizes knowledge ready for implanting into an expert system. Sophos enables to gather knowledge
quickly and easily in a structured way, and to organize it in rule form. (COGNISYS, 2011).
Data Engine
DataEngine is a software tool for data mining in which fuzzy rule based systems, fuzzy clustering, decision
trees, neural networks and neural-fuzzy systems are offered in combination with conventional techniques
like mathematics, statistics and signal processing. DataEngine is aimed at supporting the user in the solution
of data analysis tasks. It provides functionality for all the phases of data analysis. It has been successfully
applied in the fields of forecasting, data base marketing, quality control, process analysis, and diagnosis
(DataEngine, 2011).
StatSoft, Inc.
StatSoft, Inc. is now one of the largest global providers of analytic software worldwide. StatSoft's
flagship product line is the STATISTICA suite of analytics software products and solutions.
STATISTICA provides a comprehensive, integrated data analysis, graphics, database management,
and custom application development system featuring a wide selection of basic and advanced
analytic procedures for business, data mining, science, and engineering applications. STATISTICA
includes not only general purpose statistical, graphical, and analytic data management procedures,
but also comprehensive implementations of specialized methods for data analysis (e.g., data mining,
business, social sciences, biomedical research, or engineering applications). (StatSoft, 2011).
Among the product lines included in STATISTICA, StatSoft offers:
1) STATISTICA Automated Neural Networks (SANN): It is one of the most advanced and best
performing neural networks applications on the market. It will appeal to neural network
experts (by offering a wide selection of network types and training algorithms), and new
users (via the Automated Network Search tool, that can guide the user through the necessary
procedures for creating neural networks).
2) STATISTICA Data Miner: It contains a comprehensive selection of data mining methods
available on the market; e.g., by far the most comprehensive selection of clustering
techniques, neural networks architectures, classification/regression trees (also called
recursive partitioning methods), multivariate modeling (including MARSplines, Support
Vector Machines), association and sequence analysis (an optional add-on), and many other
predictive techniques; even methods for advanced/true simulation and optimization of
models are provided.
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5 Railway Inspection Techniques
5.1 Introduction
The inspection of railway infrastructure components is a very important task in railway
maintenance. As explained in section 2, rail tracks (subgrade and superstructure) are subject to
many types of damage such as head checks, corrugations, surface cracks, etc. They depend on the
characteristics of infrastructure and train traffic due to wear of components with the passing of
trains. Railway infrastructure inspection is necessary in order to guarantee ride comfort of
passengers and safety levels. This process is governed by different factors such as inspection
equipments, skills and experience of observers, as well as environmental effects of temperature; for
example, in cold countries, inspection tasks become difficult and costly in winter. Nonetheless, the
effectiveness of the process mainly depends on the efficiency and accuracy of the inspecting
equipment.
The first rail inspections were done manually by human operators walking along the track searching
for visual anomalies. Nowadays, manual inspections remain in-use by means of sophisticated
handheld equipment. Anyway the manual inspection is slow and laborious, and the results depend
on the skill level of the rail inspectors. Inspection operations are more important today than they
have ever been; hence the inspection techniques have been improved technologically for becoming
automated, efficient and quick. Although rails are examined visually for any surface damage during
the manufacturing process, railway components in-service are systematically inspected using
techniques that fall into two broad classes: manual and instrumented inspection. Most of these
inspection techniques have been developed using conventional non-destructive evaluation (NDE)
methods. These NDE methods are a wide group of analysis techniques to evaluate the properties of
a material or system without impairing its future usefulness. A review of current major NDE
techniques applicable to railway infrastructure inspection is presented bellow. The section also
reviews other techniques like artificial intelligence (AI) applied to rail maintenance management.
AI techniques such as neural networks, case-based reasoning, machine vision, expert systems or
fuzzy logic, are growing in importance for the automatic interpretation of data yielded by NDE
techniques. They play an important role due to its precision, real time response and reliability in
order to automate inspection systems and reduce the intervention of a human operator.
5.2 Non-destructive evaluation methods for railway components

5.2.1
Ultrasonic inspection
Ultrasonic techniques belong to the most commonly used NDE methods with a wide variety of
application fields. They are mostly used in pulse-echo mode so that only one-sided access to the
structure under investigation is necessary. In most cases a broadband pulse is excited by a
piezoelectric transducer and is send into the structure using an appropriate coupling agent like
water, oil or viscous paste. The waves interact with interior defects and are reflected back so that
they can be detected by a sensor. The latter can be either the same transducer that was used for
excitation or an additional sensor.
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Ultrasonic techniques are well known for the inspection of the rolling stock of high-speed lines in
Europe and abroad [e.g. Salzburger et al. 2008, Peng et al. 2010]. For instance, routine inspections
of the high-speed InterCityExpress (ICE) trains in Germany are performed during their lifecycle.
Underfloor Testing Units give an opportunity to inspect wheels and wheel rims every 240 000 km
without wheel disassembling.
Figure 46: Underfloor Testing Unit at Deutsche Bahn (UFPE, German acronym)
Another system inspects disassembled wheels after reprofiling every 500 000 km.
Figure 47: AURA Testing Assembly at Deutsche Bahn for wheel set and solid axle testing
Typical inspection systems today are capable of testing rail wheels ranging from 680 mm to
1250 mm in diameter; it takes about four minutes to inspect a wheel, while the operations are
performed five days a week on three shift schedule. The inspection facility in Nizhniy Tagil
(Russia) operates seven days a week, 22 hours per day, inspecting one wheel per minute. The wheel
dimensions may vary between 790 mm and 1295 mm.
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Figure 48: Ultrasonic Railway Wheel Inspection System

The railway wheel set inspection systems comply with several norms and standards like RD 32.1442000, EN 13 262, UIC 812-3V, ISO 5948 and DIN/EN 473, to name only a few.
Beside the inspection of the rolling stock ultrasonic systems are also used to inspect the integrity of
the rail track itself [e.g. Aharoni and Glikman 2002, Jemec and Grum, 2010]. For this purpose they
are mostly incorporated in special test trains.
Figure 49: Test train of the Deutsche Bahn for non-destructive testing of railway tracks
These test trains typically include ultrasonic and eddy current systems to automatically scan the rail
during run of the train (<100 km/h). The procedure is usually organised in a three tier inspection
process. The first tier, fast mapping of the rail is performed by the inspection car traveling at high
speed on the track. Once data is recorded and stored it is analyzed off line. The analysis or
processing can identify and categorize flaws in a scan. The processing step issues a report which
contains a list of all suspect flaws, their location in the scan and their distance from the nearest
reference points. This scan report serves the repair team who returns to the relevant section of rail,
and has to locate the detected flaw and verify it prior to maintenance operations on the rail. Such
approach reduces the amount of time the track is blocked by ultrasonic inspection process, but on
the other side it relates very much on experience of analysis team, and also increases the time until
final results with defect classification will be available for maintenance planning.
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Despite the problems mentioned above automatic test trains or test vehicles still provide useful
information about the track and rail condition. One main goal is therefore to significantly improve
and enhance the present techniques. In this context the coupling conditions, lift-off phenomena, and
the treatment of noisy signals are among the most challenging aspects.
Non-contact ultrasonics
One of the main problems in ultrasonic testing in general is the need for coupling agents in order to
ensure a sufficiently high energy transfer and signal-to-noise ratio. Especially for high-speed
application, for instance in rail track inspection, these coupling agents lead to several problems like
supply problems and speed reduction. For this reason several non-contact techniques are also
available in principle. A well-known approach is using Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers
(EMATs) for excitation and detection of ultrasonic waves [e.g. Willems et al. 2010]. Unfortunately
the efficiency and sensitivity is not comparable with piezoelectric transducers and the lift-off
problem is expected to be a crucial point in track inspection for instance. Nevertheless, EMAT
systems are already in use, especially for wheel inspections.
A second possibility to use a non-contact ultrasonic technique is to use air-coupled ultrasound
transducers [e.g. Zhou et al. 2010]. Due to the large acoustic impedance mismatch between air and
metals the efficiency and sensitivity of such a system is limited. Moreover, corresponding
transducers are only available up to approximately 1 MHz so that relevant defects in the submillimeter range cannot be detected. Well known applications were described in the context of
transmission measurements at low-impedance materials like plastics and fibre-reinforced
composites. In contrast to that pulse-echo measurements of metals dont seem to be practicable.
Another further possibility for non-contact ultrasonics is the use of all-optical systems based on
lasers for excitation and laser vibrometers for detection of ultrasonic wave fields [e.g. Blouin et al.
2009]. Unfortunately the signal-to-noise ratio of a single point measurement is orders of magnitude
smaller than for piezoelectric systems and acceptable results can only be achieved by using special
averaging techniques. In high-speed applications the averaging of several measurements at one
single measurement point is not practicable and thus, laser ultrasonic systems are only rarely used
nowadays in the railway sector.
5.2.2
Acoustic Inspection Techniques
While ultrasonic techniques are typically using the system response to active excitations, acoustic
methods only listen to natural sound sources like the rolling noise. If hollow shafts are available
(e.g. in some high-speed trains) hollow shaft integrated acoustic sensor systems can be used to
detect defects in wheel sets of the rolling stock [e.g. Frankenstein et al, 2005]. The system shown in
the following figure includes acceleration sensors as well as structure-born sound sensors and uses
wireless real-time data transmission. The acoustic part of the system detects and evaluates acoustic
signals generated by the rail-wheel contact. Based on a special averaging technique periodic
scattering contributions from defects inside the wheel set can be efficiently detected and evaluated
as was already demonstrated on various test tracks of Deutsche Bahn and Siemens. However, this
kind of system was not used for track inspection yet but this shall be realised within the ACEM-Rail
project.
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Hollow shaft
sensor unit
Antenna
Acoustic
sensor
Acoustic emission
from the railwheel contact
Figure 50: Hollow-shaft integrated wireless multi-sensor system for evaluation of the rail-wheel
contact
Figure 51: Simulation of wave propagation from the rail/wheel contact to the sensor (left hand
side) and typical averaged signal from the noisy raw data (right hand side, measured).
5.2.3
Electromagnetic Inspection
Beside ultrasonic inspection techniques a wide variety of electromagnetic techniques is available. In

the following some of them with a high relevance for railway inspection are shortly described.
Inspection using pulsed eddy currents
Eddy current measurements have been a standard technique for a long time for finding cracks in
metals either on the surface or within the material [e.g. Rokstroh et al, 2008]. Especially for nonmagnetic materials it is often the only technique employed to test materials in field service
operations. E.g. critical parts of airplanes are checked before every take off for cracks using
portable eddy current equipment. Recently, eddy current sensors have also become a common
method for rail inspection [e.g. Heckel et al, 2009].
Classical eddy current sensors are well suited to find cracks in metal parts up to a depth of several
millimetres. The sensors basically consist of a coil which is driven by alternating currents of several
Megahertz in short bursts. This way an eddy current is induced in the metal surface which in turn
can be picked up with the sensor coil. Cracks in the surface greatly change the impedance of the
system coil and metal surface and are therefore easy to detect even for very small crack size.
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However, the probe has to be either in contact or very close to the surface (<1mm). Therefore usage
in rail inspection has for a long time been limited to hand-held system or system mounted on
manually driven trolleys which are offered on the market by a number of companies. In a recent
research projects performed by the Bundesanstalt fr Materialforschung und prfung the concept
has been adapted to test and also to repair vehicles (e.g. Dey) without changing the basic premise of
short distance between rail and sensor. To adapt the method of eddy current testing to a train borne
platform mounted on a commercial train the distance between sensor and rail has to increase
significantly. While eddy current is able to achieve high resolution and also quantitative assessment
of crack depth for regular rail inspection reduced performance of the system could be tolerated
while at the same time increasing the frequency of inspection which would be possible using
commercial trains. Initial experiments carried out by Siemens have shown that eddy currents of
lower frequency are quite able to detect larger cracks even when probe-surface distance exceeds
10mm. We are not aware of any other group working on adapting eddy current techniques for crack
detection to rail inspection from commercial trains.
In addition to using eddy currents for crack detection also a distance measurement between sensor
and a metal surface is possible. Within the ACEM-Rail project this technique is going to be used in
conjunction with acceleration sensors for track geometry measurements. We are not aware of any
other research or development in this direction.
Acceleration
sensor
Distance sensor
array
Rail
Non-contacting rail sensor combining acceleration data and

eddy current based distance measurements
Figure 52: Schematical lay-out (left) and photograph (right) of early test set-up of the sensor
system.
Alternating Current Field Measurements (ACFM)
The Alternating Current Field Measurement (ACFM) is now widely accepted as an alternative to
magnetic particle inspection [e.g. Papaelias et al, 2010]. The ACFM technique is capable of both
detecting and sizing surface breaking cracks in metals based on the skin effect. It can be applied for
the detection of near-surface defects. Typically, the maximum skin depth achieved with ACFM
systems varies from 0.1mm for carbon steels to 6mm for stainless steel.
The technique is based on the principle that an alternating current (AC) can be induced to flow in a
thin skin near the surface of any conductor. By introducing a remote uniform current into an area of
the component under test, the electrical current will be undisturbed if there are no defects present. If
a crack is present, however, the uniform current is disturbed and the current flows around the ends
of the crack. Because the current is an alternating current it flows in a thin skin close to the surface
and is unaffected by the overall geometry of the component. The probe requires no electrical
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contact with the component and can therefore be applied without the removal of surface coatings or
grime. In contrast to conventional eddy current sensors that require to be placed at a close (< 2 mm)
and constant distance from the inspected surface, a maximum operating liftoff of 5mm is possible
without significant loss of signal when using ACFM probes. This is due to the fact that at small liftoff the signal strength diminishes with the square of lift-off, not with its cube which is the case for
eddy current sensors. This enables the ACFM technique to cope with much greater lift-off and
thicker nonconductive coatings.
Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR)
Ground Penetrating Radar is a geophysical method that uses radar pulses in exactly the same way
than ultrasonic pulses are used to image subsurface materials [e.g. Grimberg et al, 2010 and AlQuadi et al, 2006]. Instead of ultrasound pulses GPR uses electromagnetic radiation and detects the
reflected signals from subsurface structures. It can detect objects, material changes, voids, and
cracks. GPR does not require double-sided access to the medium as radiography does. It can be
used to evaluate reinforcement and post-tension cable locations, concrete cover, slab and pavement
thickness, voids in concrete and subgrade washout, to name only a few. Therefore, main
applications in the railway sector are described in the field of subgrade and track bed
characterization, respectively.
5.2.4
Thermographic inspection
Infrared thermography also belongs to the well-known non-contact NDT techniques. The material
under test is first heated by a flash lamp or an inductive technique. After that the spatio-temporal
evolution of the thermal field is monitored by an infrared camera. If defects are present the thermal
conductivity is locally decreased so that hot spots of higher temperature can be detected. From the
temporal change of the thermal field additional information about depth and size of the defect can
be determined in principle [e.g. tarman et al, 2008 and Elballouti at al, 2010].
In earlier investigations this technique has already shown its high potential for the characterization
of typical flaws in rails. It could be shown that this technique principally allows the characterisation
of the rails with a high sensitivity and a high testing speed. Just like ultrasonics and electromagnetic
techniques a thermography system can also be integrated in a testing train. With the current
hardware an automated testing of the rails and automated defect recognition at speeds up to 20 m/s
(about 70 km/h) seems to be possible.
Fig. 41 shows an example for the detection of defects in a rail using a thermographic testing
technique. The thermal image shows very clearly indications of defects in the rail head. In analogy
to the electromagnetic systems described above, thermography is also limited to near-surface
defects.
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Figure 53: Thermal image: part of a rail with defects at the upper , Image field: 8 cm x 8 cm
5.2.5
Radiographic inspection
Radiographic inspection [e.g. Bouye, 2010] also belongs to the traditional NDT techniques. It uses
x-rays to radiograph a sample and to display the local x-ray attenuation. The latter in turn is strongly
correlated with the density distribution and the thickness of the different materials involved. If voids
or larger cracks are present the density and thus, the x-ray attenuation is decreased. These density
differences can be used to determine the location and size of objects.
Radiography typically requires a double-sided access to the structure under investigation since a
transmission set-up is commonly used. Therefore, applications in the railway sector are limited to
cases where components or parts of components are easily accessible and have a small thickness (in
case of metals). This is partly valid for inspection of the rolling stock in the context of wheel testing
or for subgrade inspection for instance. Nonetheless x-ray applications in the railway sector are very
rare which is mainly caused by the large dimensions of the mostly metallic samples (low
penetration depth) and the necessary safety regulations for ionising radiation.
5.2.6
Inspection using visual cameras
The main goal for using images of the track is to eliminate, or reduce as much as possible, the
visual inspection done by workers walking along the track to detect any fault, missing components,
etc. The state of the art of these instruments does not yet allow a complete and safe elimination of
the inspection done by humans, but helps a lot and, also, allows detecting a number of risky
situation difficult to detect by the human eye.
A number of linear cameras are mounted under the vehicle. The figure shows a very complete
arrangement for a metro line, inspecting also the conductor rails
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Figure 54: Positions of the visual cameras

The linear cameras are space triggered (e.g. every 1 mm). Every image is equivalent to a single line
of a normal camera. Assembling all this lines in an endless sequence gives a stream image of the
track: an image having:
- on the transverse (Y) axis, as many pixels as the camera
- on the longitudinal (X) axis, as many pixels as the number of mm travelled by the train
The following figures show examples of the assembled image, for a short section.
Figure 55: Example of an assembled camera image
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A colour image is normally used to allow a human inspector viewing the track as if he was walking,
but with obvious advantage for safety and line capacity. Sometimes it used for the faulty fasteners
automatic detection, by machine vision techniques.
Figure 56: Black and white image for detection of rail surface defects
A black and white image is normally used for detecting rail surface defects and for every automatic
analysis by machine vision techniques (rail surface, fasteners, sleepers, joints). The automatic
analysis is useful to focus the attention of the workstation operator, who then goes to examine the
relevant colour image and decides the relevant actions.
5.2.7
Distributed Optical Fibres
Distributed optical fibre sensors, capable of temperature and strain measurements, are based on
stimulated Brillouin scattering and rely on the interaction between two lightwaves and an acoustic
wave in the optical fibre. Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) is a nonlinear process that can occur
in optical fibres at relative low power levels. It manifests through the conversion of a small fraction
of the incident light to scattered light with a shifted frequency. Brillouin effect has been proposed
for making distributed fibre sensors capable of sensing temperature and strain changes over
relatively long distances. The operation of these latter relies on the dependence of the Brillouin
frequency shift, B, on the velocity VA of acoustic waves in the fibre, that is:
B = 2nV A
As the acoustic velocity depends on temperature and strain, it is possible to map out the distribution
of temperature or strain by monitoring changes in the Brillouin frequency shift along the fiber
length. Spatial information along the length of the fiber can be obtained through Brillouin Optical
Time Domain Analysis (BOTDA) by measuring propagation times for light pulses travelling in the
fiber. This allows for continuous distributions of the measures to be monitored. This type of sensing
has tremendous potential for structural monitoring, offering unmatched flexibility of measurement
locations and the ability to monitor a virtually unlimited number of locations simultaneously up to
km long paths.
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In the railways field, distributed optical fiber sensors can be employed for spatially continuous
monitoring of the tracks temperature and deformation, as well as the monitoring of the structural
integrity of infrastructures as tunnels, bridges and embankments. To this purpose, a single-mode
optical fiber cable has to be attached to the track and/or the structure under test in order to detect
both tensile and compressive strains. On the other hand, for temperature monitoring purposes, the
optical fiber cable has to be deployed in such a way to assure a good thermal contact with the
structure but without allowing any strain transfer from the fiber to the structure itself. Different
kinds of adhesives have to be employed in order to match the above conditions. Laboratory and
field tests have to be performed in order to select the most suitable optical fiber cables and bonding
protocols for railways monitoring purposes.
Distributed deformation and temperature measurements are presently carried out by using a portable
prototype integrating all the optoelectronic equipment necessary to perform the monitoring. The
data are made available in the form of ASCII files, where the temperature and strain values are
reported versus the spatial coordinate along the fiber and as a function of time. The main features of
the available prototype are: a relatively short acquisition time, a fully automatic operation, a high
signal-to-noise ratio and a measurement range up to 5km with a strain resolution of 210-5L/L
and temperature resolution of about 1C. In particular, an acquisition time in the order of about
one minute can be obtained by employing, for data acquisition, an analog-to-digital (A/D) converter
with a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA) device on the same board. The FPGA can process
the output of the A/D converter in real-time: we use it to perform an averaging on-board of the
acquired traces. This permits to strongly reduce the aggregate data rate and therefore the latency
time due to transfer of data to PC. A valuable consequence is that a high number of averages, and
therefore a high Signal/Noise (S/N) ratio can be obtained while keeping a short acquisition time.
Both instrument control and data processing are performed by a central processing unit (CPU)
mounted on a mini-ITX board placed internally. External communication with the instrument is
realized by setting up a remote desktop control. The optical fiber cable used for sensing is simply
connected to the instrument by two FC adapters located in the front panel of the instrument.
Dedicated software has been developed in which the whole measuring process as well as the postprocessing of the acquired data is fully automatic. The different measurement parameters can be
easily set and the results of the measurements are visualized and stored.
5.3 Artificial Intelligence techniques for railway inspection

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a field of computer science and engineering concerned with the
computational understanding of what is commonly called intelligent behaviour and with the
creation of artefacts that exhibit such behaviour (Shapiro, 1991). AI techniques have been used in a
variety of disciplines such as logistics, data mining, medical diagnosis, etc. Railway inspection is
one such area that has deployed AI techniques for the automatic interpretation of data as well as
tasks related to predictive maintenance. AI techniques play an important role due to its precision,
real time response and reliability in order to reduce the intervention of a human operator and
consequent human errors. This section summarises all the relevant AI techniques used so far in the
railway inspection domain. An elaborate explanation concerning each AI technique and discussion
regarding other techniques can be found in (Peter, 1999; Negnevitsky, 2005). A detailed review of
the work carried out thus far on the use of AI techniques for the automatic interpretation of data
within the railway inspection area can be found in Yella (2006), Podder (2010) and Iqbal (2010); in
particular, Podder (2010) provides an analysis focusing on monitoring of railway track
infrastructure and Iqbal (2010) on the field of rail heads, vegetation, switching and crossing.
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5.3.1
Neural networks
An artificial neural network (ANN) can be defined as a model of reasoning based in the human
brain. A neural network consists of large number of units, known as neurons, which are connected
by weighted links passing signals from one neuron to another. Each neuron receives a number of
signals from its input links and computes an output dependent using an internal transfer function.
The output signal is transmitted through the outgoing links. Then, data flows along these links, also
called connections, and is scaled during transmission according to the values of the weights. They
do not archive the acquired knowledge in an explicit form such as rules but normally in the form of
weighted connections. The neural networks functionality is mostly dependent on the values of the
weights which can be updated over time, causing the neural network to adapt and possibly learn.
The most striking feature of a neural network is the ability of learning from its environment, and
improving its performance through a learning process. There are different types of learning process,
but supervised learning and unsupervised learning or self organized learning are the most popular
ones. In a supervised learning, the process incorporates an external teacher who presents a training
set to the network. So that each output unit is told what its desired response to input signals ought to
be. The output is achieved together with a global error function. The computed error function is
then used to update the weights with an aim of achieving output that is close to the desired output.
In contrast to supervised learning, unsupervised learning or self organized learning does not require
an external teacher. During the training session, the neural network receives a number of different
input patterns, discovers significant features in these patterns and learns how to classify the input
data into appropriate categories (Negnevitsky, 2005).
In the rail inspection field, the neural network codes are being used for the automatic inspection and
classification of the defects from the test data. The key advantage with the neural network is its
ability to perform fast classifications with minimal computing requirements. The use of such
artificial intelligence tool can limit, if not eliminate, the variability of human interpretation of the
data. A considerable amount of works, essentially based on pattern recognition techniques and
artificial intelligence methods using neural networks, has been published on the subject (Yella,
2006; Sambath et al, 2011, Martin et al, 2007).
5.3.2
Machine vision
Machine vision is the process whereby a machine, usually a digital computer, automatically
processes an image and reports "what is in the image". That is, it recognizes the content of the
image. Machine vision systems use certain features to acquire the pixel data from a camera sensor,
manipulate the pixel data and deliver the image of interest (Snyder and Qi, 2010). A machine vision
system is comprised of numerous components and, depending on the specific system application,
certain configurations may be more useful than others. Most machine vision systems have the same
general components, but certain parts require a fair amount of care in the selection process.
Recently, machine vision systems have been incorporated into several industrial applications. In
railway industry, these systems are being applied to automate inspection of specific components in
the track structure, such as rail defects, sleepers anomalies, as well as missing fastening elements.
In this area, a machine vision system consists of a video acquisition system for recording digital
images of track and custom designed algorithms to identify defects and symptomatic conditions
from these images. The use of machine vision system for railway component inspection is aimed to
supplement current inspection methods, allowing consistent, objective inspection of a large number
of track components (Sawadisavi et al., 2009). Indeed, these systems can increase the ability to
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detect defects and reduce the inspection time in order to guarantee more frequently the maintenance
of the railway network.
5.3.3
Fuzzy logic
Fuzzy logic is concerned with the use of fuzzy values that reflect how people think. It attempts to
model our sense of words, our decision making and our common sense. As a result, it is leading to
new, more human, intelligent systems. Fuzzy logic is determined as a set of mathematical principles
for knowledge representation based on degrees of membership rather than on crisp membership of
classical binary logic. Unlike two-valued Boolean logic, fuzzy logic is multi-valued. It deals with
degrees of membership and degrees of truth. Fuzzy logic uses the continuum of logical values
between 0 (completely false) and 1 (completely true). Thus, a proposition is not either true or false,
accepting that things can be partly true and partly false at the same time (Negnevitsky, 2005). Fuzzy
logic holds good for resolving uncertainty and, hence, for expressing linguistic uncertainties. In
railway inspection area, this feature is particularly valuable, since the automation and interpretation
systems demand high precision levels in their measurements. Most of the work for automatic
interpretation of data using fuzzy logic is carried out in combination with other AI techniques, such
as neural networks, expert systems, etc., with the main idea of resolving uncertainty. A compressive
review of these works can be found in Yella (2006).
5.3.4
Case base reasoning
Case-based reasoning (CBR) is the process of solving new problems based on the solutions of
similar past problems. CBR is able to utilize the specific knowledge of previously experienced,
concrete problem situations (cases), so that this approach involves matching problem details against
records of previous cases. A new problem is therefore solved by finding a previous similar case and
by reusing information and knowledge of that case in the new problem situation. However, CBR
does not depend on fully modelling this knowledge, instead, it needs knowledge of how to recall
and use previous cases. A second important difference is that CBR also is an approach to
incremental, sustained learning, since a new experience is retained each time a problem has been
solved, making it immediately available for future problems (Aamodt and Plaza, 1994). The
obtained solution might be directly applicable to the current problem; however, usually some
adaptation will be needed. There are many different approaches to the design of the matching
process, the storage of the cases, and methods for modifying the retrieved solution to fit the current
problem.
CBR techniques are considered to be closely relevant to the non-destructive testing area in terms of
decision-making in the sense that the system uses cases (past experiences) to arrive at a conclusion
and also updates the case-base with new cases etc. In addition, CBR techniques are also considered
to be a viable alternative to other AI techniques in cases of weak domain knowledge, since they are
much easier to formulate in this situation (Yella, 2006). An analysis of the suitability of CBR for
NDT data interpretation, advantages and disadvantages, can be found in Jarmulak et al, (2001).
5.3.5
Expert systems
An expert system is a set of rules that reproduces the behaviour of a human expert within a welldefined, narrow domain of knowledge. They are also so-called knowledge based, since their
performances basically depend on the use of knowledge and experience of human experts. Expert
systems are designed to provide expert quality performance on domain-specific problems. The
most popular expert systems are rule-based systems since they have had considerable success and
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are versatile. The main components of any expert system are a knowledge base and an inference
engine. The knowledge base contains the domain knowledge useful for problem solving. In a rulebased expert system, the knowledge is represented as a set of rules. The inference engine carries out
the reasoning whereby the expert system reaches a solution. It is responsible for the overall
execution of the rules (Negnevitsky, 2005). With a rule base, knowledge can be developed by either
data-driven or goal-driven search. In the first, also known as forward chaining, one has a supply of
facts and repeatedly applies legal moves or rules to produce new facts to get (hopefully) to the goal.
In the latter, also known as backward chaining, one repeatedly considers the possible final rules that
produce the goal and from these creates successive subgoals.
Expert systems provide a relatively new approach to problem solving that may be very helpful in
maintenance activity planning. In the field of non destructive testing, the consistent and correct
evaluation of the experiments is crucial. In order to achieve this, expert systems are considered to be
the most desired, since they evaluate the input and report the presence of defects or the fact that no
defect was present by performing some type of reasoning over the present knowledge in order to
arrive at a conclusion (Yella, 2006).
5.3.6
Data mining
It is essential for the success of intelligence applications that data analysis tasks do not spend more
time than absolutely necessary. In this regard, data mining plays a key role for extracting,
organizing, and analyzing large sets of data in order to effectively analyze and draw meaning from
them. Data is what we collect and store, and knowledge is what helps us to make informed
decisions. The extraction of knowledge and information from data is called data mining. Data
mining can also be defined as the exploration and analysis of large sets of data in order to discover
meaningful patterns and rules. It is therefore a key approach in search of consistent patterns and/or
systematic relationships between variables, and then to validate the findings by applying the
detected patterns to new subsets of data. The ultimate goal of data mining is prediction
(Negnevitsky, 2005). Data mining techniques can be classified according to different views. For
example, for the kinds of knowledge to be mined, one may classify data mining techniques into
generalization, characterization, association, classification, clustering, pattern matching, etc., or
based on the level of concepts to be discovered, into primitive level, high level, multiple-level, etc.
Because a large amount of inspection data will be collected, comparative and trend analyses of track
component condition are possible through data mining procedures. In fact, the data analysis
component may also involve a combination of AI and data mining techniques to provide a efficient
approach to infrastructure management through improved planned maintenance procedures.
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6 A Review of Infrastructure Maintenance Planning Models
6.1 Introduction
In order to keep the level of service of the railway offer above quality standards, all elements
involved in the railway constellation should function and performs properly and reliably. This
dictum forces the managerial strategy to keep control of deviations, either detected or anticipated,
for each of the components status.
Regarding the railway infrastructures, these consist of a large variety of items of different nature
subjected to different factors (i.e. train speed and loads, traffic, environmental influences, etcetera).
In order to keep the infrastructures functioning properly, the managerial system has to perform a
Maintenance Plan. The way this Maintenance Plan is developed chronologically defines the
Maintenance Planning.
Several maintenance planning managerial actions have been developed along the railway history,
beginning with the just and only pioneering corrective tasks and continuing with the preventive
tasks that give way to a broad field of predictive models to estimate the residual life of a specific
component and the precise moment to repair/substitute it. This technical development has been in
parallel in most industrial sectors, though with some chronological lag.
All Maintenance Planning consist of several processes:
Control Process monitors the characteristics and functioning of each item and part of the
system by inspection (i.e. visual, non-visual).
Measurement Process captures quantitative values regarding the items controlled.
Analysis Process compares the data captured in the Measurement Process with existing and
previous ones.
Diagnostic Process determines, from the outcome of the Analysis Process and the
information (Data bank) available regarding the in-service technical thresholds of the
item/part inspected, the actions to be carried out to keep the elements of the system above
quality levels.
Maintenance Plan, it defines (lists) all actions to be carried out to keep all elements/parts of the
system functioning properly. It includes the blow-up of the actions into unitary operations to be
carried out, the material, personal, time and administrative resources needed.
Chronological Plan defines the available time-widows. There are time-windows regarding
the actions and unitary operations, and time-windows for the available needed resources. All
actions and resources are output from the Maintenance Plan.
Scheduling Plan matches Maintenance Plan and Chronological Plan in order to cross out
tasks/operations and time-windows.
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In Figure 31 an overview of the maintenance planning scheme is presented.
Figure 57: Maintenance planning scheme

Nowadays the concept of Maintenance Planning tends to articulate all the above processes to
facilitate the implementation in an integrated and inter-related way under a modeling architecture as
Artificial Intelligence (AI), Machine Learning (ML) or Expert Systems (ES), given lieu to
Maintenance Planning Models (MPM). The tool derived from this conceptualization aims to give
response to the challenge of managing a complex system composed of multiple items, elements,
components and subsystems in a practical and operational way.
It is worth mentioning that maintenance operations may also be ranked according to the severity
and difficulty of the resourced needed. For a high level of certain resources, i.e. budget,
maintenance operations can be considered as renewals. In other cases, when the goal pursuit
trespasses the frontier of the inner resources of the system to be maintained, we are talking of new
constructions; this is the case for instance of the construction of a new railway line in order to
absorb trip demand between two spots in order to avoid an estimate increment of the traffic flow, or
in other words to sustain the car traffic under certain fixed threshold level.
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6.2 General modelling concepts

In order to formulate mathematical optimization models for the railway infrastructure maintenance
usually the maintenance process will be structured into several, separate decision phases. Here we
present a general structuring as often found in the literature, see e.g. Budai-Balke, 2009:
1. Budget determination: Budget is mostly fixed annually, based on history and adapted due to
inflation, efficiency gains, or special events etc.
2. Long-term quality prediction: Input for degradation and deterioration models is information
from inspections carried out on the infrastructure elements. The quality of elements will be
predicted, taken into account the estimated need for railway capacities in the future.
3. Project identification and definition: Maintenance and renewal projects will be derived by
the outcome of the prediction models from the previous step and in accordance with the
determined budget. The amount of track possession also will be determined in this step.
4. Project priorization and selection: Priorities will be assigned to the projects identified and
defined for the next years, in order to select projects actually to be carried out within the
next few months. The final selection has to consider a balancing of the workload for
contractors carrying out the projects.
5. Possession allocation and timetabling of track possession: Track possession is the crucial
factor when planning maintenance with regard to rail service. It has to be decided which
operations require track possession during nights, a weekend, or even longer. Some work
also may be done during train service, reducing the impact on service goals.
6. Project combination: On the basis of the (yearly or monthly) list of agreed projects it will be
analyzed which projects can be combined with each other, with routine maintenance works,
or some not yet approved works, in order to reduce track possession time or to save
otherwise costs. Phases 4, 5, and 6 are strongly correlated to each other, and possibly will be
conducted together.
7. Short-term maintenance scheduling: A detailed time planning is made for the selected and
properly combined maintenance projects. This includes the scheduling and reservation of all
required resources, like manpower, special equipment, material etc. Maintenance schedules
have to comply with pre-planned track possession and aim for minimizing delays and
disruption in train timetables.
In practise, these phases are not always done strictly sequentially, but sometimes repeated in cycles
or smaller steps. Also, this structuring is only a rough top-level breakdown to define, what works
will be carried out and when. From the view of modelling concepts for maintenance optimization
and using them to optimize the maintenance process we can distinguish three levels of planning:
On the strategic level a long-term planning is done to define the overall maintenance
concept. Maintenance cycles, renewal and replacement projects will be defined using
degradation and deterioration models. Decisions regarding the organization of the
maintenance department, the personnel, equipment, outsourcing etc. are more the concern of
industrial organization than the topic of mathematical models.
The tactical planning involves the minimization of track possession by considering train
timetabling. Preventive operations like routine works and larger projects will be priorized,
selected, and possibly combined. The overall workload of the resources involved will be
estimated and balanced. The planning horizon is mid-term, within a year.
In the operational phase the actually preplanned preventive operations are complemented by
corrective operations emerging due to failures, breakdowns, or predictive works. A short-
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term scheduling of all relevant resources and with respect to planned track possessions has
to be done, trying to minimize disruptions and reductions on rail service.
In the next section we present our results from the literature review on mathematical optimization
models for the strategic, tactical, and operational level. As we found there is not much literature that
focuses on both these issues - mathematical models and railway infrastructure maintenance. A good
summary on the relevant literature give Budai-Balke, 2009 and Zoeteman, 2004.
6.3 Maintenance optimization models

6.3.1
Strategic level
Most questions on the strategic level are more of organizational nature, and are not treated in a strict
formal manner by the means of mathematical optimization models. The following papers deal with
the problem of defining the strategic maintenance concept for single elements of the infrastructure
(mainly the track) based on long-term deterioration or degradation models.
In Ferreira and Murray, 1997, a state-of-the-art review on track degradation modelling is given,
together with an overview of track maintenance decision support tools used in Northern America
and Europe. Different physical degradation factors, that are relevant to modelling, are distinguished,
like dynamic effects, train speeds, or axle loads, and models covering these factors are
characterized. For maintenance optimization based on these degradation models mainly the use of
Markov Decision Processes is observed.
A simulative approach is done in Simson et al., 1999. The model simulates the degrading track
condition using an existing track condition model. Operating costs for up to five different train
types are calculated from simulated train delays and maintenance work. The model outputs the net
present value of the financial benefits of undertaking a given maintenance strategy, when compared
with a base-case maintenance scenario. So planning consist mainly in evaluating different simulated
scenarios.
Meier-Hirmer et al., 2005, and Hokstad et al., 2005, both describe strategic maintenance
optimization for specific railway lines, the French SNCF and a Norwegian one, respectively. In
Podofillini et al., 2006, the problem of optimally using ultrasonic inspection cars is addressed. A
risk/cost model has been built to reproduce the rail failure process with respect to inspection and
maintenance procedures. Then a multi-objective optimization approach using genetic algorithms is
developed to optimize economical and safety related aspects. The optimal decision-making for tie
tamping is considered by Miwa et al., 2001. Maintenance strategies for the annual tamping schedule
are determined based on a transition model for predicting surface irregularities. To solve the
optimization problem an all-integer linear programming model is applied.
6.3.2
Tactical level
Tactical planning involves the step of selecting and combining predefined maintenance works and
projects with the side-effect of planning track possession. The optimization model developed in
Budai et al., 2006 is in line with this planning aims. The Preventive Maintenance Scheduling
Problem (PMSP) defined here has as an input a list of (short) routine maintenance activities and
(long) unique projects, that have to be scheduled in a certain period of time. These operations have
to be combined in time as much as possible to reduce the amount of track possession generated by
the maintenance schedule. The problem turns out to be NP-hard, so the use of different heuristics is
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justified. Three simple greedy-based heuristics have been developed and compared on randomly
chosen instances. In Budai et. al, 2009, the PMSP again is considered, this time solved by genetic
and memetic algorithms, and a more sophisticated two-phase opportunity-based heuristic.
Another approach for planning track possession is done by the Dutch company ProRail, managing
the railway maintenance in The Netherlands. In Van Zante-de Fokkert et al., 2007, the method of
constructing a four-week maintenance schedule is described. In a previous step, the whole railway
network was divided into so-called working zones. In the maintenance schedule constructed each
working zone of the main lines is closed to trains at night exactly once, thus minimizing track
possession. Furthermore the trade-off between the number of nights and the contractors' workload
can be examined.
6.3.3
Operational level
Operational planning traditionally is a wide field for the application of mathematical models and
methods, as many planning problems on the operational level can be exactly formulated in terms of
objectives to be reached, decisions to be taken, and restrictions to be observed. In maintenance
planning typical questions that arise on the operational level involve the scheduling of resources
like crew and equipment, in compliance with the train timetables and pre-planned track possession,
in order to minimize costs, delays in service, or other objectives. The most important examples
found in the literature are presented in the following.
Studies that have been undertaken include attempts to develop optimal maintenance execution
plans, that schedule consecutive maintenance and renewal machine runs in time in order to
minimise integrated costs of track works and possessions (Siefer, 1998), or optimal possession
allocations over the network for mainly small maintenance and renewal works, which are performed
during the timetable in order to minimize disruptions.
Higgins et al., 1999, develop a mathematical optimization model designed to help resolve the
conflicts between train operations and the scheduling of maintenance activities. The track
scheduling problem, which involves the allocation of activities to time windows and crews to
activities, is formulated as an integer programming model. The objective is to minimise a weighted
combination of expected interference delays and prioritised finishing time of activities. Unforeseen
events, that cause delays of trains or activities, are modelled as probabilistic elements of the
objective function, and are assumed to be of a known discrete distribution. A two-phase approach
consisting of a construction heuristic followed by an improvement step is implemented, where the
improvement stage is done by applying a tabu search algorithm. The testing of the model and the
solution approach is done on a 89km long railway in Australia with 13 track links, 30 trains
scheduled per day. Three activities have to be scheduled on each track link to six crews in a
planning horizon of four days. The model is mainly aimed at providing for an off-line planning
function. According to the author, the same model could be used by local track managers and train
planners in real-time so that adjustments could be made to a planned schedule of activities in the
light of unplanned train services or train cancellations. Such a system would need to be integrated
into a train dispatching real-time database.
The Railway Track Possession Assignment Problem (RTPAP), which is a resource-allocation
problem, appears in Cheung et al. (1999). The problem is to assign railway tracks to a given set of
scheduled maintenance tasks according to a set of constraints. One of the requirements of the
RTPAP is to schedule sufficient preventive maintenance work so that the railway can operate
without any disruption during the operated period. Another requirement is that the time available to
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carry out maintenance work is less than five hours a day. Furthermore, the number of types of
maintenance work required is quite high and a set of rules and procedures have to be followed in
scheduling the maintenance work. Moreover, the maintenance tasks have priorities, so the purpose
is to assign as many high-priority job requests as possible. The associated project was carried out by
the Hong Kong Mass Transit Railway Corporation to apply expert-system techniques to automate
the assignment of track possession to maintenance tasks. After studies of the problem domain,
constraint relaxation was chosen as the problem-solving paradigm. A new, two-phase resource
allocation strategy based on constraint relaxation was developed and implemented to solve the
RTPAP.
The last paper to mention, Grimes, 1995, is not that much on the specifics of maintenance planning,
but more a case study on the application of genetic techniques. Here, as an example the planning of
track tamping is chosen to be solved by the means of Genetic Algorithms and Genetic
Programming.
6.4 Track maintenance cost models

One of the key points in the planning of maintenance is the estimation of the cost. There are many
operations within the railway infrastructure maintenance: renewal of the various elements of track,
replacement of infrastructure elements, preventive and corrective maintenance. A very detailed list
of the various maintenance activities that account for a high proportion of the annual track
maintenance budget can be found in INNOTRACK (2009). Another classification of maintenance
and renewal activities has been proposed by Esveld (2001) who broke them down into four main
areas as shown in Figure 32.
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Figure 58: Track renewal and maintenance activities distinguished by Esveld (2001).
The estimated cost of each of these maintenance operations is a prerequisite to developing a more
complete model in which the costs relate to the whole life of the element is considered. This is the
aim of Life Cycle Cost (LCC) that can be considered as a special type of maintenance cost models
in which costs over the whole life span of the infrastructure element under study are considered.
This may help to select the most cost effective maintenance strategy. The importance of the correct
estimation of the cost of each maintenance activity is essential, since such estimates are used as
inputs for more complex models like LCC models or systems to assist the maintenance decision
making. Broadly speaking there are two types of cost estimation models. On one side one can find
models based on actual data from the maintenance work carried out by a particular railway
company. Within this category one would include the models developed for the Swedish and
Finnish railways by Johansson and Nilsson (2004) and by Reddy et al. (2007) and that developed by
Munduch (2008) for the Austrian railways. All these models are based on an econometric
formulation and need a database of statistically significant size so that the model is significant.
Estimation of the model poses no major problems and therefore the predictive quality depends
greatly on the quality of the data on which they rely. Additionally, there are models with very
specific cost estimates for different railway infrastructure elements. For example, Ling (2005)
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presents several models for calculating the cost of renewing items such as switches, crossings and
insulated rail joints. It includes an extensive literature review on models of LCC, and presents a
comprehensive review of models to estimate the maintenance cost.
The econometric model of Johansson and Nilsson (2004) is very detailed and has been developed
for the Swedish railways. The model considers different types of track elements and singular
constructions such as bridges and tunnels. It also includes variables that define the type of railway
traffic on the line and the line type. Other variables are the length of the line and a line quality
index. The model fits to data from the cost of maintenance carried out by these companies in a
period spanning several years. The model provides quantitative information on the effect on the cost
of each of the track elements that have been considered as well as the influence of the other
variables. As a qualitative conclusion of interest, the model predicts significant economies of scale
in maintenance costs when traffic is above a certain level.
Reddy (2007) presents a model for rail lubrication and rail grinding planning in order to reduce
wear and rolling contact fatigue. The model is very detailed and takes into account the total cost of
maintenance of a railway line segment by summing the following costs: preventive rail grinding,
loss of traffic due to rail grinding, rectification based on non-destructive testing using ultrasound
probes, rail breaks and derailment, lubrication and replacement of worn-out unreliable rails. In
particular the cost of lubrication depends on the level and type of traffic on the track, on the radius
of curvature and on the lubrication planning adopted. The model was fitted with data from Swedish
Rail and Queensland Rail. One of the most important conclusions of the model is the estimation of
the optimal rate of lubrication operations according to the radius of curvature of the rail segment
and the load on the tracks. In principle, significant savings can be achieved by adjusting the
lubrication operations to its optimum rate.
Other types of substantially different models are those based on the estimation of the reliability of
the infrastructure elements. In principle, these models do not require the use of databases of actual
costs. Such models are usually particular developments of reliability theory models. For this reason,
an important point for these models is the estimation of the failure rate of the different elements that
compose the model. In some cases, the failure rate is estimated by the combined use of theoretical
models and empirical data. In more complex models, the prediction of the state of the infrastructure
requires the use of theories or models with a more scientific basis. This is the case of the track
degradation models. Fine realistic modeling of this phenomenon requires consideration of the
behavior of the rail vehicle and the track. Thus, degradation models require as inputs vehicle
dynamics models as well as track irregularity models. A brief review of railway vehicle modeling
can be found in INNOTRACK (2008a). Moreover INNOTRACK (2008b) gives a review of six
tools that integrate degradation models and that have been developed to assist with the strategic
decision making on maintenance activities. These tools are:
DECOTRACK: The Degradation Cost of Track model developed by Lule University of
Technology and the Swedish Railway administrator Banverket in order to estimate the
changes in maintenance and track degradation rate due to traffic change.
TREDA: Track Residual Deflection Analysis model developed by the Federal Railroad
Administration.
ITDM: Integrated Track Degradation Model developed by Queensland University of
Technology.
TPM: Transition Process Model developed in Japan to determine an optimal tamping
schedule for the Japanese railway network.
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RTLM: Railway Track Life-Cycle Model developed by the Association of American

Railroads.
VSTIM: Vehicle Track Interaction Strategic Model developed by the british Network Rail
A detailed description of the objectives and scope of each of these tools can be found at
INNOTRACK (2008b). With these tools, maintenance costs may be calculated for different
combinations of degradation mechanisms, and maintenance policies. The cost estimation may also
take into account replacement costs, and interest rates. In general, the estimation of the degradation
rates relies on mechanistic having a theoretical basis. They may also be estimated from empirical
data.
Finally, the model presented in Rahman and Chattopadhyay (2010) is also noteworthy. These
authors developed a model to calculate the cost of maintenance contracts. The cost estimation is
based on some assumptions about the failure rate of the infrastructure elements.
6.5 Maintenance planning and optimization tools

Maintenance has been defined by Dhillon (2000) as the combination of all actions required to keep
a technical system in a state in which it can perform the function for which it was designed. In order
for complete this task, several types of actions should be undertaken and a correct management and
planning of all these actions is as important as the action themselves. The use of computerized
maintenance management systems is a common practice nowadays due to the complexity of most
engineering systems that a modern society.
Particularly, railway networks are a type of system that imposes a very high level of demand with
respect to maintenance planning. A complicating factor in railway maintenance planning is the need
to schedule maintenance so as to interfere as little as possible with the movement of trains. It is also
necessary to take into account safety requirements for workers. From an operational point of view it
is desirable to optimize the time interval between successive interventions of preventive
maintenance. Additionally, corrective maintenance actions due to unforeseen events introduce
additional complexity in maintenance planning and scheduling.
A Computerized Maintenance Management System (CMMS) can provide different types of results
to simplify the development of maintenance plans or automate them to a greater or lesser extent. In
particular, actions that fall within the capabilities of a CMMS are the following:
optimal allocation of human and material resources for maintenance activities;
maintaining and updating a database with information on the status of the network;
forecasting of preventive maintenance needs based on the information stored;
planning needs of provisioning of materials and equipment required for the maintenance
activities;
development of intervention plans in order to meet maintenance requirements due to

unforeseen events.
Zoeteman and Esveld (2004) provided a review of the CMMS employed by various European
railway administrations. One of the first CMMS developed at the request of the UIC by experts
from some 15 railways was ECOTRACK (Jovanovic and Zaalberg, 2001). In general, the use of
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ECOTRACK highlighted the benefits of CMMS and how they might be improved using the
experience gained by users. Another system developed by VolkerStevin (VolkerStevin Ltd) was
TRIS (Track Information System). TRIS was a CMMS oriented to the maintenance related to
geometrical defects of the road.
Because the railway infrastructure components should have a long life, maintenance planning must
take into account the benefits it brings when the entire expected life of each item and not just when
considering a shorter time horizon. Consideration of the entire life of the elements leads to the Life
Cycle Cost (LCC) analysis, which can be defined as the economic assessment of a component of a
system when considering all costs over its lifetime. Decisions on maintenance planning must take
account of the LCC so that the potential benefits of maintaining properly reflect the fact that it
influences the life of the elements on which it operates. In particular, the effectiveness of a
maintenance strategy would be:
availability
Cost effectiveness = ---------------LCC
where availability would be the fraction of time during which all the components of the system are
in operating conditions. Patra et al. (2010) presented a model to evaluate the effectiveness of the
maintenance cost of a Radio Block Centre (RBC) System which is part of the Automatic Traffic
Control (ATC) system of railway infrastructure. A detailed analysis of the influence on the LCC of
different types of maintenance of the road is set out in Patra et al. (2008). The LCC analysis is
based on reliability theory models and some empirical data obtained for the Swedish railway
administration Banverket. The inclusion of LCC is a common practice in the current CMMS.
Another very important aspect of maintenance planning is the need to optimize all processes
involved in maintenance. Within these processes are the possession and planning track maintenance
activities, as well as the allocation of human and technical resources to different activities. Such
problems are formulated as problems of linear and integer programming. A recent review of
different formulations for maintenance scheduling problems can be found at Budai-Balke (2009).
The use of the CMMS is fully consolidated in most of the railway administrations. In addition to
custom designed systems, there are in the market more or less versatile systems that have been
developed by different companies. Among these, the systems developed by the companies Mermec,
RTS and Emsco are remarkable. The following section deals with the products developed by these
companies.
RAMSYS
Ramsys (Mermec, 2011) is a decision support system for railway infrastructure maintenance and
renewal management, built as a software platform were the different maintenance processes are
articulated with the use of preventive and predictive models.
Main capabilities of this tool are:

Infrastructure modeling under a GIS shell.

Inventory of singular assets.
Inventory of characteristics/capabilities/features of singular assets.
Predictive modules for asset deterioration modeling
Maintenance planning modules
Resource optimization modules
A general scheme of the main input/output flow of this software in sketched in Figure 59.
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Figure 59: Ramsys main input/output capabilities (Source: Mermec, 2011).

The software consists of modules that can be integrated in a flexible way according to the needs of
any particular application. The main modules of the software are:
Infrastructure module. It manages and controls many infrastructure asset types, as track,
catenary, signaling and telecommunication, layout, switches and crossings, bridges and
structures. For each asset specific functionalities can be handled.
Predictive maintenance module. It includes several processes:

o Data Collection, it captures inspection data from monitoring vehicles and diagnostic
systems, stores past and present history and maintenance operations carried out.
o Data Analysis, it analyses data by comparing different sources, surveys and histories,
it validates and processes each measurements according to its reliability.
o Planning, it is built as a decision-making scheme based on a set of condition
parameters and related deterioration models. It estimates the residual life and
prepares the maintenance plans.
o Control, it controls and checks the executed maintenance activities.
MEX
The Australian company Maintenance Experts (MEX, 2011) is the developer of the software. This
code is specialized in automated maintenance scheduling for general industry, though it is
implemented in railway industries. It consists of several modules, the core ones are:
MEX Maintenance management module. It includes several processes:

o Assets. It stores the elements and equipments subjected to maintenance.
o Work Orders. It handles all maintenance operations to be carried out on the different
assets.
o Reservations. It reserves all resources needed for each maintenance job.
o Inspections. It keeps track of all inspections that are carried out on the assets.
o History. It stores the assets history and inspections, i.e. past recordings, works.
o Preventive maintenance. It records and manages the maintenance specifications of
the assets.
o Project Management. It handles all work orders by a Gantt chart.
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MEX Mobile module. It is focused on tracking field work, communicating with the
maintenance management module. Their main features are performing of routine
inspections, creation/editing/invoicing of work, issue/return of spare parts, stocktaking of
inventory and capturing of equipment readings.
RTS
RTS Solutions (RTS, 2011) offers suite software to manage operational and maintenance functions
in the railway sector. The ready-commercial software packages respond to various railway
maintenance needs:

FMS. Fault and incident management.

OTPS. On track planning system. It is tailored to optimize the utilisation of machinery and
resources.
RMS. It is web based real-time tool to keep track of all operations from planning to
worksite.
WIMS. It allocates maintenance work to work teams based on tasks and activities
description and prioritization levels.
RVMS. It a management system for allocating resources.
ENSCO
This company (ENSCO, 2011) offers integrated services in the area of railway track maintenance.
Its main strength focuses on track inspection services and asset management. The company
performs track inspection using dedicated vehicles specifically designed to the utilisation of NDT
techniques. It markets proprietary software to manage the data captured during the inspection
services. In particular:

GeoEdit: a geometry data management program.

TrackIT: a web based track asset and inspection management system.
Optram
This is a product commercialized by Bentley Systems (Bentley, 2011). The software is made of
separated modules devoted to different maintenance issues:

Optram Condition Modules. They are devoted to the management of inspection data. It deals
with track geometry, rail profile and defects, catenary and third rail geometry, using
standard inspection car and system data.
Optram Enterprise Asset Management Interface. It streamlines the asset analysis with the
work-order lifecycle.
Optram Enterprise Suite. It enables to link railway corridor data for a complete decision
support structure for rail corridor maintenance planning at optimal cost.
Optram GIS Interface. It is used to store, locate and display infrastructure asset data along
the railway corridor managed and correlate them with associated maintenance information.
Optram Video. This Video module gives maintenance managers access to video views of the
rail corridor under inspection.
Other software products, related to specific railway infrastructures as bridges, are also developed.
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6.6 Literature summary

Literature on mathematical optimization models for railway infrastructure is very rare. One can find
approaches for the strategic planning level, that are based on degradation or deterioration models
for single infrastructure elements, like the rail, and where predicted state transitions are used to
design long-term maintenance concepts. On the tactical level research is mainly concentrated on the
problem of combining preventive maintenance works to minimize track possession and to balance
workload. Different scheduling models are known for the operational maintenance planning
problem, all of them dealing with very limited problem characteristics in specific settings.
We are not aware of any approaches to combine different levels, nor to use stochastic information
regarding uncertainties in railway maintenance within the planning phase. As well up to now there
are no models for dynamic operational planning based on information from maintenance execution.
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7 Recent R&D efforts in the World
Railway infrastructures are assets which represent a high investment. They are designed to work in
very demanding safety conditions and must display a very low occurrence of failures. In recent
years, rail infrastructure managers have shown strong interest in the development of novel
techniques for the reliable and accurate evaluation of railway infrastructure in order to improve the
efficiency of preventative maintenance and reduce the need for reactive maintenance to the lowest
possible level. This section comprehensively reviews research projects in the field of railway
infrastructure maintenance carried out around the world. It includes a synthesis of the main findings
from these projects with an emphasis on projects carried out in the European Research Area since
the main goals of ACEM-Rail will be applied to the European railway system domain. This section
is not intended to be an exhaustive summary of all railway research activities, but instead is
intended to give the reader a background regarding the research topics developed under this study
and also to provide a list of references for further study.
7.1 European Projects

This section describes past and recent European projects on track maintenance activities, most of
which are EU-funded projects principally from the Fifth, the Sixth and the Seventh Framework
Programmes that have information publicly available. The European Commission is aware of the
importance on Research & Innovation in the field on Maintenance and in particular in railway
infrastructure maintenance as train is more sustainable and environment friendly than other ways of
transport. Hence, a large number of research projects have been supported by the Framework
Programmes regarding this issue. This section also covers other research projects carried out in the
European Research Area under national research programmes, as well as self-financed by private
companies. Research has selected a few projects, listed in Table 1 and 2, needing special attention
from all stakeholders involved, since they will provide new basic knowledge standards for trend
setting, developments and innovations. From these lists, only those most relevant with the scope of
ACEM-Rail will be described below.
Table 1. List of EU-funded Projects.
Project Acronym
Project Title
AUTOMAIN
Augmented Usage of Track by Optimisation of

Maintenance, Allocation and Inspection of railway
Networks
Combining innovative portable VISUAL, ACOUSTIC,
MAGNETIC, and NMR methods, with in-situ
CHEMICAL diagnostic tools for effective failure
assessment and maintenance strategy of RAIL and
subway systems
European research project for optimised ballasted
tracks
EUROpean railway open MAINtenance system
European Optimised Pantograph Catenary interface
High performance rail tracks
Rail infrastructure clearance management
DIAGNO-RAIL
EUROBALT
EUROMAIN
EUROPAC
HIPERTRACK
INFRACLEAR
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Programme
Status
(*)
FP7-TRANSPORT A
FP7-SME
BRITE/EURAM 2
IST
FP6-SUSTDEV
FP5GROWTH
FP6-SUSTDEV
C
C
C
C
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INFRAGUIDER
INFRA-STAR
INNOTRACK
INTEGRAIL
INTERAIL
I-RAIL
MOMENTUM
PMNIDEA
PROMAIN
RAIL
RAIL-Inspect
REMAIN
RIVAS
SAFERAIL
SAFE-RAIL
SUPERTRACK
TRACKS
U-RAIL
URBAN TRACK
Infrastructure guidelines for environmental railway

performance
Improving railway infrastructure productivity by
sustainable two-material rail development
Innovative Track Systems
INTElligent inteGration of RAILway systems
Development of a novel integrated inspection system
for the accurate evaluation of the structural integrity of
rail tracks
An Intelligent On-line High-Speed Rail Condition
Monitoring System Deployed Via Passenger and
Freight Trains
Multidisciplinary research and training on composite
materials applications in transport modes
Predictive maintenance employing non-intrusive
inspection & data analysis
PROgress in european MAINtenance and management
of railway infrastructure
Reliability centred maintenance (RCM) Approach for
the Infrastructure and Logistics of railway operation
Train mounted sensors and systems for the inspection
of rails
Modular system for reliability and maintainability
management in European rail transport
Railway Induced Vibration Abatement Solutions
Development of novel inspection systems for railway
wheelsets
Development of an Innovative Ground Penetrating
Radar System for Fast and Efficient Monitoring of Rail
Track Substructure Conditions
Sustained performance of railway tracks
An integrated system for on line inspection of railway
tracks
Non-contact ultrasonic system for rail track inspection
Urban Rail Infrastructure
VERA
Vehicle-rail interaction modelling
(*)A: Accepted; C: Completed; E: Execution
FP7-TRANSPORT
FP5GROWTH
FP6-SUSTDEV
FP6-SUSTDEV
FP7-TRANSPORT
C
C
E
FP7-SME
FP6-MOBILITY
FP7-TRANSPORT
FP5GROWTH
FP5GROWTH
FP5GROWTH
FP5GROWTH
E
C
C
C
FP5GROWTH
TRANSPORT
FP7-TRANSPORT
FP7-TRANSPORT
E
E
FP6-SUSTDEV
FP5GROWTH
ESPRIT 4
C
C
FP6-SME
FP6-IST;
FP6-INFRAST
FP6-SUSTDEV
FP6-MOBILITY
C
C
C
C
C
Table 2: Research projects carried out in the European Research Area.
Project
Acronym
SAEC
MIFFO
SABE
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Project Title
Country
Ultrasonic Testing and Continuous Assessment System for

Infrastructure using Geo-Radar (ADIF)
Real-time monitoring of railway infrastructure using
technologies based on fiber optics (ADIF)
ERTMS balises inspection system (ADIF)
Wireless sensor network. Multi-platform for wireless
communications and protocol for sensorization and control
of railway infrastructure (ADIF)
Spain
Status
(*)
E
Spain.
Spain
Spain
E
C
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Modelling and Detecting Damage (Wear and Rail Contact United Kingdom
Fatigue) in Rails (University of Birmingham)
TRAINS
Railway Vehicle & Track System Integration (University United Kingdom
of Birmingham)
Measurement, modelling and mapping to predict rail United Kingdom
temperature (Entice Technology)
Feasibility of detecting rail flaws using acoustic equipment United Kingdom
fitted to vehicles (AEA Technology Rail)
Rail stress free temperature measurement techniques (AEA United Kingdom
Technology Rail)
Automatic wheel lathe data acquisition and analysis United Kingdom
AWLDAA
software (RSSB and WMG)
RAIL-3T
Track integrity analysis via integration of three France
technologies: Computer vision, Ultrasounds and Eddy
Current (MERMEC Group)
B-scan ultrasonic image analysis for internal rail defect France
detection (SNCF and INRETS)
AMS
Sistema di monitoraggio binari ferroviari (WAVENG)
Italy
Transparent
New imaging technique for the testing of railway rails Germany
rails
recognised (BAH)
SUPRA
Track integrated test facility for flexible and intelligent Germany
inspection of rail vehicles -Phase 0 (Fraunhofer- IZFP)
KOMPAS I
Development of an obstacle detection system for automatic Germany
rail operation using TV technology (TUHH-TechnologieGmbH)
Development of an Integrated System for Fault Diagnosis Greece
and Preventive Maintenance in Railways (University of
Patras)
AURELIA
Automatic Wheel-Set Measuring System Through Laser Austria
Technology for Rail Vehicles (FPZ Arsenal GmbH)
OptiWart
Optimising Maintenance Processes through State-Oriented Austria
Maintenance (Vienna Consult)
C
C
C
C
C
C
E
C
E
C
C
C
C
C
INTERAIL: Development of a novel integrated inspection system for the accurate evaluation
of the structural integrity of rail tracks
http://www.interailproject.eu/
The project launched officially in 2009. The project aims seek to minimize rail failures by
developing and successfully implementing an integrated high-speed system for the fast and reliable
inspection of rail tracks. The application of the high-speed system will be complemented through
the implementation of novel semi-automated testing equipment which will be deployed for the
verification and evaluation of the defects detected during high-speed inspection.
This project is actually in execution and will result in the implementation and demonstration of the
advanced high-speed inspection system under actual operational conditions by 2012. This system
will combine the use of automated visual inspection with Alternating Current Field Measurement
(ACFM) and ultrasonics probes into a single high-speed inspection vehicle. Tests carried out using
ACFM sensors have proved their capability in detecting Rolling Contact Fatigue (RCF) damage at
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high speeds even when measurable lift-off is involved. Further development will also concentrate in
the integration of the ACFM module with the automated vision and ultrasonics module as part of
the complete INTERAIL high speed inspection system (Papaelias, 2010).
SAFERAIL: Development of novel inspection systems for railway wheelsets

http://www.saferail.net
The project launched officially in 2008 and seeks to minimise wheelset failures by developing a
novel on-line inspection system for the accurate and reliable wayside monitoring of wheelsets, and
a powerful NDE technique that will combine ultrasonic phased arrays with ACFM sensors for the
faster and more accurate inspection of wheelsets during production and maintenance. The sensing
modules will be integrated via an intelligent control unit which will incorporate software for the
automated analysis of the signals obtained. The integrated system will be capable of being
connected to the railways computer network in order to provide feedback on passing rolling stock
to signalling engineers. The system will also allow connection with existing wayside detectors, such
as strain-based wheel impact monitors, giving it increased accuracy and versatility. The successful
implementation of the SAFERAIL systems intends to practically eliminate the likelihood of
wheelset failures and derailments caused by them, as well as minimise the damage to the rail
infrastructure and rolling stock due to wheel flats and shelling
A first prototype online monitoring system, using vibration analysis, has been installed by APT and
its up and running at De Lijn in Antwerp, Belgium. All sensors are embedded in the track. Live
updates of the online system are accessible through a password protected web address. The next
stage will be to improve and optimise the defect detection and recognition algorithms. The
SAFERAIL consortium has already carried several field tests with the support of partners De Lijn,
EMEF, VTG and SNCF under effectively actual operational conditions with very encouraging
results. The successful implementation of the deliverables will offer to the rail industry several
technical advantages which will increase the reliability of rolling stock operations and will help
towards the optimisation of operational cost efficiency. The partners believe that the full
commercialisation of the SAFERAIL technology is feasible as soon as the project concludes in
September 2011 (CORDIS, 2011; SAFERAIL Flyer Brochure).
PM'n'IDEA: Predictive maintenance employing non-intrusive inspection & data analysis

http://www.pmnidea.eu/.
The project launched officially in June 2009. The project aims to help reduce the burden on
inspection and maintenance of Europes increasingly congested rail and tramways through the
development of novel sensor technologies and procedures. The project will develop novel
inspection and sensor technologies for rail track infrastructure; it is urban oriented but many of the
products developed will be applicable to mainline. The major deliverables from the project are:
Application of image acquisition and analysis techniques for as much of the track system
and its environment currently inspected by manual means.
Development of an inspection system for the assessment of internal integrity of street
running grooved rail sections.
Development of methodologies to measure the deviation of track quality from identified
signature tune of the segments.
Establishing the criteria for assessing the structural integrity of grooved rail sections
embedded in street running sections of tramway networks.
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Development of techniques for the automatic assessment of the degradation and integrity of
track sub-components.
This project is actually in execution and will deliver new component designs and maintenance
processes that are aimed at improving the integrity of urban rail transport networks through the
deployment of intelligent design and sensor technologies into cost effective products and targeted
non-intrusive monitoring processes. In particular, the monitoring systems will combine objective
automatic visual inspection with examination of internal integrity and the assessment of system and
component degradation from a defined datum. It will also bridge the current gap in standards for the
definition and assessment of the structural integrity of grooved rail (CORDIS, 2011; PM'n'IDEA
Flyer Brochure).
PROMAIN: PROgress in european MAINtenance and management of railway infrastructure

http://www.promain.org/
The project launched officially in January 2000 and it is actually in execution. The aim of ProMain
is to initiate the development of information and communication technologies and to demonstrate
their potential to increase capacity and efficiency in European rail freight transport by developing a
thematic network. The network ProMain has been designed to enhance the performance of railway
infrastructure through application of innovative knowledge, tools and methodologies,
using available results of research, technology developments and applicable knowledge in
EU- and other projects;
bringing together users and developers in a flexible network for knowledge management,
applying and testing new CENELEC safety approaches,
concentrating on the enhancement of new European railway lines, and
identifying needs for further actions.
The applications have been grouped around lines selected from EU priority programmes and
projects (54 TEN projects, 3 freight-freeways, and 2 corridors). The problems in these groups of
lines were representative for a wide sector of present and future rail transport crossing national
borders. ProMain has achieved to establish co-operation between users and parties who can provide
solutions, make available the results of research and technological developments, investigate and
apply better construction principles, management and safety approaches. Among its other main
successes, Promain has also identified needs for further actions in Europe such as further research,
political measures and necessary funding, in favour of a sustainable mobility provided by railways
(CORDIS, 2011; TRKC, 2011).
I-RAIL: An Intelligent On-line High-Speed Rail Condition Monitoring System Deployed Via
Passenger and Freight Trains
The project launched officially in November 2010. The project seeks to practically eliminate rail
failures by successfully delivering a non-contact high-speed rail condition monitoring system based
on Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducer technology. The application of the high-speed system will
be complemented through the implementation of novel semi-automated testing equipment based on
ultrasonic phased array technology which will be deployed for the in-situ verification and
evaluation of the defects detected during high-speed inspection. This project is actually in execution
and will also develop Intelligent Decision Support Tools to enable the system to provide an
immediate and automated recommendation for the optimum maintenance planning (CORDIS,
2011).
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AUTOMAIN: Augmented Usage of Track by Optimisation of Maintenance, Allocation and

Inspection of railway Networks
The project will launch officially in February 2011, so that no documents available yet. The major
goal is to optimize and automate maintenance and inspection where possible, also to introduce new
planning and scheduling tools and methodology (CORDIS, 2011). The project aims to reduce the
possession time around 40%. To achieve this five objectives are set:
adopting best practice from other industries in maintenance optimization (e.g. highways,
aerospace).
developing novel track inspection approaches for freight routes with a scope on in-train
measuring and self inspecting switch.
researching and assessing innovations that can improve the effectiveness and efficiency of
large scale inspection & maintenance processes with a scope on track and switch
maintenance, track inspection;
further developing of key technologies that will drive the development of modular
infrastructure design.
developing a new maintenance planning and scheduling tool that is able to optimise the
maintenance activities, taking account of the benefits brought about by other improvements
in this project.
DIAGNO-RAIL: Combining innovative portable visual, acoustic, magnetic, and NMR
methods, with in-situ chemical diagnostic tools for effective failure assessment and
maintenance strategy of rail and subway systems
The project launched officially in January 2011, so that no documents available yet. The overall aim
of the project is to develop an integrated system of state-of-the-art NDT methodologies to improve
risk assessment and failure prediction concerning the integrity and functionality of rail systems, in
favour of the participating SMEs. In particular precise Visual and Magnetic ac-Susceptibility
methods, for fast and reliable assessment of track failure and damage will be combined with stateof-the-art Acoustic, and Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) portable devices appropriate for
examining the performance of concrete structures, in order to gain critical information concerning
the performance, damage risk, and condition monitoring of rail and subway systems. In parallel an
innovative chemical tool kit will be developed for in situ chemical analysis measurements, which in
combination with modern established analytical techniques will be used to characterize in-situ
materials. (CORDIS, 2011).
INNOTRACK: Innovative Track Systems
http://www.innotrack.net
This project officially ended in 2009 and was aimed at developing cost-effective high performance
track infrastructure with a target reduction in LCC of 30% while improving RAMS. It has
successfully gained an understanding of the root causes of European track problem conditions
(linked to cost) and established the priorities for innovation; performed technical validation of
innovations. It has also established a measuring campaign and database for track stiffness
measurements; investigated and evaluated track support improvement methods via sub-grade
reinforcing; and delivered optimised designs for switches and crossings (based on revised geometry,
new materials and elastic support of frog), introduced new driving and locking devices and
developed an open standard for hollow sleepers.
Among its other main successes has been the development of rail grade selection guidelines to
counter observed degradation and a novel technique for the assessment of microstructural damage;
undertook a comparative evaluation of grinding strategies & target profiles and evaluated three new
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welding techniques; and a review of existing methods for track maintenance and renewal and
proposed logistics improvements for the key elements of track: support, switches & crossings and
rails (CORDIS, 2011; SST FP6, 2011; TRKC, 2011).
INFRACLEAR: Rail infrastructure clearance management

This project officially ended in early 2008 and was aimed at the digitalisation of rail infrastructure
condition and clearance and the development of infrastructure and clearance management system in
line with market needs. The aim was to allow optimum use of the infrastructure's "track clearance"
by means of an innovative approach for track gauging by using operational monitoring technology
and thus to contribute to increase the capacity and safety of the infrastructure. The INFRACLEAR
clearance sensor developed was based on laser sheet triangulation profiling techniques (CORDIS,
2011; TRKC, 2011; SST FP6, 2011). This system was composed of three sub-systems namely:
a measurement device, including a train-borne sensor and the measuring car
a processing device associated with an expert system to provide conditional maintenance
programmes
a simulation tool making it possible to determine clear and safe European routes for a
given train gauge over borders.
The performance of the inspection device is summarised below:
an inspection should be carried out at least once a year on the entire railway network
(inspection of single tracks is expected to be performed in a single operation)
the targeted measuring speed objective during inspection is 120 to 140 km/h
the accuracy of the system must allow for detection of obstacles with a minimum thickness
of 20 mm, i.e. 0.5 ms passing time in front of the sensor when the train is running at 140
km/h
the dimension and space requirements of the device will be designed so that they are
accepted on the different networks.
URBAN TRACK: Urban rail infrastructure

http://www.urbantrack.eu/
This project officially ended in 2010 and was aimed at developing, testing and validating innovative
products for urban rail track infrastructure, in full accordance with the ERRAC 2020 vision: high
capacity, reliability, high comfort & safety, easy access, seamless travel. Building blocks and a
comprehensive toolbox were developed. These building blocks were integrated using the developed
tools into a family of solutions within the function of the track categories concerned (metro, tramshared, tram-segregated) and within the function of the specific needs of the network concerned
(small curves, high axle loads, etc.). Validation was carried out in ten networks (each validating
another type of infrastructure or solution). The evaluation was based on criteria such as operational
availability and cost. The project aims were addressed at reducing the life cycle costs by 25% by
reducing the material cost by 20%, the overall installation cost by 30% and by increasing the
service life by 50%. The results were new innovative track products, systems and construction
methods, as well as new innovative track maintenance methods, supported by a comprehensive
LCC model and its accompanying software. This project is urban oriented but many of the products
developed can be applicable to mainline (CORDIS, 2011; TRKC, 2011; SST FP6, 2011).
RAIL: Reliability centered maintenance approach for the infrastructure and logistics of
railway operation
http://arcos.inf.uc3m.es/~rail/
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This project officially ended in 2004 and was aimed to study the application of Reliability Centered
Maintenance (RCM) techniques to the railway infrastructure. The RAIL project has developed,
implemented and evaluated the RCM analysis on various types of track circuitry, axle counters,
point machines, signals and interlocking devices. It has successfully developed a RCM
methodology adapted to large infrastructure networks and a RCM toolkit to perform the RCM
analysis, including cost aspects and maintenance planning guidance. Among its other main
successes, the project has produced a state-of-the-art report covering RCM, safety, regulations and
machines used in railway infrastructure in four European countries, and a database containing the
total RCM analysis of all safety critical railway infrastructure components. The project has also
developed a Life Cycle Cost (LCC) model to be applied in the economical evaluation of the railway
equipment in general. The results have been corroborated with the application of the methodologies
to signal equipment in several railway network sections. Because of the successful conclusion of the
project, the Spanish railway company (RENFE) and the German railway company (DB A.G.), not
only decided to adopt RCM to enhance preventive maintenance, but they have started a large
project to implement total preventive maintenance relying on the implantation of the RCM
methodology (CORDIS, 2011; TKRC,2011; RAIL, 2000).
SAFE-RAIL: Development of an Innovative Ground Penetrating Radar System for Fast and
Efficient Monitoring of Rail Track Substructure Conditions
http://www.saferail-project.eu/
This project officially ended in 2008 and was aimed to develop a fast and accurate GroundPenetrating Radar (GPR) system that can continuously check rail track sub-surface conditions. The
project has successfully developed a system which consists of new fast radar that uses innovative
antennae to allow precise estimation of ground layers and buried objects. The SAFE-RAIL system
is based on a completely new concept of railtrack substructure monitoring radar and on an
innovative data interpretation and analysis tools, based on Expert Systems and Neural Networks
providing on-field information in user-friendly way.
Promising results have been obtained with the first SAFE-RAIL prototype, which has been recently
exercised on rail-track test sites. For Mer Mec Group, functional tests carried out both in line and in
laboratory, have demonstrated, through a complete integration and installation onboard MER MEC
test-train (MM380), that the prototype is compliant with the objectives and operating effectively
(CORDIS, 2011; TRKC, 2011; SST FP6, 2011).
The successful completion of the SAFE-RAIL project was lead to:
a) demonstrating the capabilities of quickly and accurately referenced detection and
classification of railtrack condition deterioration in the rail-track ballast, sub-ballast
and sub-grade
b) providing a prototypic processor for user-friendly onboard diagnostic data
interpretation and early warning against the probability of critical failures of the rail
network.
HIPERTRACK: High performance rail tracks

This project officially ended in 2004 and aimed in particular to improve the slab track system in
comparison to common ballasted tracks. The main objective of the project was the development of
an innovative modular HIPERTRACK slab track system, based on a comprehensive investigation
of existing slab track systems, track/vehicle dynamics and damage mechanisms of critical track
components. The topics of environmental behaviour (noise and vibration), maintenance and total
life cycle costs were considered. Numerical models were developed to simulate appropriately the
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track behavior under train passage which allows subsequently the assessment of the design and
dimensioning of the innovative track and its components in view of safety, noise, vibration and
reliability. The design process was completed in 2003, and a demonstrator of the new track system,
including the rigid foundation track and the mass spring system was manufactured and installed
during March 2004 in the 'Adriatica' line near Foggia, in southern Italy. With the application of
HIPERTRACK system components along the railway system reduced noise and vibration emissions
were reached. (FONA, 2005)
SAEC: Ultrasonic Testing and Continuous Assessment System for Infrastructure using GeoRadar
SAEC is a Spanish project in progress, under the National Plan of R&D&I, and approved on the
call of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, 2008. This project for predictive maintenance
of railway infrastructure by developing a system for ultrasonic testing and continuous assessment of
the railway bed with Geo-Radar, will enable the evaluation of various pathologies affecting the
railway track platform, focusing on maintaining infrastructure. Therefore, knowledge of these
pathologies will allow preventive maintenance work reducing costs, increasing security and
extending useful life of infrastructure. With the development of SAEC ultrasonic testing system
using GeoRadar, it will be possible to implement a predictive maintenance system for infrastructure
by monitoring and continuously assessment of the track and railway bed, determining automatically
the ballast thickness, areas of fines pollution, areas of moisture accumulation and possible existence
of voids. The novelty of SAEC system by Geo-Radar consists of integrated optimization of the
ultrasonic testing systems for the railway bed.
For the field trials will be located different sections with different characteristics and maintenance
problems for assessing the Geo-Radar capability in different circumstances. The trials should
determine the optimal parameters for acquisition, the types and disposition of antennas to be used to
study the thickness and geometry of the ballast beds, ballast subbases and track beds, the detection
of voids, moisture areas and areas of fines pollution in the ballast (ADIF, 2011).
MIFFO: Real-time monitoring of railway infrastructure using technologies based on fiber

optics
MIFFO is a Spanish project in progress, under the National Plan of R&D&I, and approved on the
call of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, 2007. This project has as priority objective to
research and develop two types of complementary sensing systems based on fiber optic for realtime monitoring of railway infrastructure. This monitoring project arises from the need to monitor
certain railway infrastructure (tunnels, embankments, viaducts, etc.) allowing early action, which
increases the security of the infrastructure and promotes a significant savings in maintenance costs
The project proposes the use of two fiber optic based systems for monitoring the designated
infrastructure. Once developed these analysis systems, the MIFFO project has planned to carry
these systems for a field trial, which must be simultaneous with the normal use of the track. This
will also allow knowing limitations and problems that would have these technologies in this
environment. The testing have begun with a measuring system based on Bragg gratings on track, at
kilometer 69.5 of the high-speed line Madrid-Barcelona, with support from the technical building
for tests and field trials for Technological Innovation projects. Moreover, it has completed the
design and schedule of monitoring test through dynamic sensors based on fiber optics and located in
a viaduct and accelerated trials at real scale in the installation of CEDEX (ADIF, 2011).
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TRAINS: Railway Vehicle & Track System Integration

http://www.rtu.mmu.ac.uk/res_7.htm
TRAINS was a UK research project completed in January 2005. The overall aim of the project was
to improve the safety and economics of railway operation by creating a systems engineering
framework within which various sub-systems could be evaluated. There were eight specific
objectives listed in order of priority:
1. To define and understand the whole system which influences the vehicle track interface;
2. To provide a means of integrating existing subsystems relating to vehicle, wheel and track;
3. To understand the interaction between wheel and rail and the consequences of mismatch
across the interface;
4. To predict, control and reduce the risk of derailment;
5. To predict, control and reduce the number of rail breaks and vehicle faults;
6. To identify related changes required in current systems and key policy issues for owners and
operators;
7. To integrate the results into an asset management system;
8. To reduce vehicle and track operating costs whilst improving performance.
The major outcomes of the project were the development of a finite element model to simulate the
response of a wheel set moving on ballasted track; a new technique to improve the understanding of
the effect of microstructure change on rail life; and a prototype decision support system capable of
helping railway industry decision makers. It has successfully disseminated to the railway industry
highlighting the importance and relevance of systems thinking within the railway industry.
Modelling and Detecting Damage (Wear and Rail Contact Fatigue) in Rails
It was a UK research project completed in 2003. The main part of the work was to carry out a
feasibility study on two methods for detecting rolling contact fatigue damage and microstructural
changes in rails using non-contact sensors. Two sensor types were assessed: a multi-frequency
electromagnetic (EM) sensor and an ultrasonic sensor (based on electromagnetic acoustic
transducers, EMATs) using four rails with differing levels of damage. The test samples included a
rail with severe gauge corner cracking, a rail with hairline cracks partially removed by grinding, a
rail with no visible cracks but a microstructurally altered surface region (white layer) and an unused
rail. The results for tests using the EM sensor with the sample rails found that it could detect the
severe gauge corner cracks through a difference in the phase angle measured at the highest
frequencies. The tests with the ultrasonic sensors clearly showed the system to be capable of
detecting the severe gauge corner cracks (RRUK, 2011).
7.2 International Projects
The previous section has reviewed research projects carried out in Europe for rail infrastructure
maintenance and rail inspection. The majority of the works is based on inspection techniques, such
as ultrasonics, magnetic flux leakage, eddy current sensing, visual inspection or ground penetrating
radar. Similar trends appear in projects around the world about this research field. In this regard, rail
network operators have an active involvement in rail inspection research led by the academia and
rail testing service suppliers. For that reason, a considerable amount of works is being developed
under national research programmes or self-financed activities in private companies. Significant
developments in inspection of rails have been reported around the World by academic institutes or
research centres such as Universities of Warwick and Birmingham in UK, Seoul National
University of Technology, Monash University, INRETS and Transportation Technology Centre
Inc.; and private companies (Socomate, Technogamma, Wavesinsolids, ENSCO, Balfour Beatty,
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Tektrend, Tokimec, etc.). A few research works are listed in Table 3. A report prepared for EU
funded project INNOTRACK provides a detailed summary of technologies and works that can be
used as a reference to know of what equipment is currently available or being researched and where
(INNOTRACK, 2008; Papaelias, 2008).
Table 3: Research works at international level.
Title
On-line High-speed Rail Defect Detection (Phase III)
Rail Profile Grinding on High-Hardness Premium Rail at the Facility for Accelerated
Service Testing
Ultrasonic Monitoring of Longitudinal Rail Stress
Alternative Rail Intruder and Obstacle Detection Systems
Video System for Joint Bar Inspection
Non-Destructive Evaluation of Railway Track Using Ground Penetrating Radar
Application of ultrasonic phased arrays for rail flaw inspection
Vehicle instability- track based monitoring
Testing of Track Sub-Structure
Advanced rail inspection system
Diagnosis of locomotive diesel engine condition
Guided radar detection system
Monitoring of railway bearings
Vehicle-based measures of track performance
Development of a mobile inspection system for rail integrity assessment
Ultrasonic testing of railheads using the electromagnetic acoustic method
Ultrasonic Rail Flaw Detector "Rail Tester"
Portable ultrasonic rail flaw imager
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Country
US
US
US
US
US
US
US
Australia
Australia
Canada
Canada
Canada
Canada
Canada
Canada
Russian
Japan
Japan
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ANNEX A Glossary of non-destructive testing techniques

Nondestructive testing (NDT), also known as Nondestructive inspection (NDI) and Nondestructive
evaluation (NDE) are techniques that can be classified into various methods of nondestructive
testing, each based on a specific scientific principle. These methods are deployed into various
techniques. Not all techniques have proved to be valid for all industrial applications.
Along this document some terminology related to non-destructive techniques (NDT) for testing
items and systems of the railway infrastructure appear. The purpose of this appendix is to provide a
brief description of the NDT, which can also be easily found in many texts and database (Moore
and Udpa, 2008).
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Acoustic emission testing (AE or AT). Acoustical analysis can be done on a sonic or
ultrasonic level. Ultrasonic techniques make possible to predict deterioration earlier
than conventional techniques. AEs are commonly defined as transient elastic waves
within a material caused by the release of localized stress energy. Hence, an event
source is the phenomenon which releases elastic energy into the material, which then
propagates as an elastic wave. Acoustic emissions can be detected in frequency
ranges under 1 kHz, and have been reported at frequencies up to 100 MHz. Rapid
stress-releasing events generate a spectrum of stress waves starting at 0 Hz and
typically falling off at several MHz. Sonic monitoring equipment is less expensive,
but it also has fewer uses than ultrasonic technologies. Sonic technology is useful
only on mechanical equipment, while ultrasonic equipment can detect electrical
problems and is more flexible and reliable in detecting mechanical problems.
o
Ultrasonic testing (UT), very short ultrasonic pulse-waves with center

frequencies ranging from 0.1-15 MHz and occasionally up to 50 MHz are
launched into materials to detect internal flaws or to characterize materials.
Electro Magnetic Acoustic Transducer (EMAT) (non-contact), is a noncontact inspection device that generates an ultrasonic pulse in the part or
sample inspected, instead of the transducer. The waves reflected by the
sample induce a varying electric current in the receiver (which can be the
same EMAT used to generate the ultrasound, or a separate receiver). This
current signal is interpreted by software to provide clues about the internal
structure of the sample.
Laser ultrasonics (LUT). The generation lasers are short pulse (from tens of
nanoseconds to femtoseconds) and high peak power lasers. The physical
principle is of thermal expansion or ablation. In the thermoelastic regime the
ultrasound is generated by the sudden thermal expansion due to the heating of
a tiny surface of the material by the laser pulse. If the laser power is sufficient
to heat the surface above the material boiling point, some material is
evaporated (typically some nanometres) and ultrasound is generated by the
recoil effect of the expanding material evaporated. In the ablation regime, a
plasma is often formed above the material surface and its expansion can
make a substantial contribution to the ultrasonic generation. consequently the
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emissivity patterns and modal content are different for the two different
mechanisms.
o
Time of flight diffraction ultrasonics (TOFD) is a very sensitive and accurate

method for nondestructive testing of welds for defects. TOFD is a
computerised system that was invented in the UK in the 1970s for the nuclear
industry by Dr. Maurice Silk. The use of TOFD enabled crack sizes to be
measured more accurately, so that expensive components could be kept in
operation as long as possible with minimal risk of failure.
Electromagnetic testing (ET). In this technique electric currents or magnetic fields or

both are induced inside a test object and observing the electromagnetic response. If
the test is set up properly, a defect inside the test object creates a measurable
response.
o
Alternating current field measurement (ACFM) is an electromagnetic

technique for detection and sizing of surface breaking cracks. It works on all
metals and, not requiring direct, electrical contact, works through coatings.
Eddy-current testing (ECT). It uses electromagnetic induction to detect flaws

in conductive materials. It is a technique valid for conductive materials, the
surface of the material must be accessible, It has some disadvantages as the
finish of the material affects the accuracy, the depth of penetration into the
material is limited, and flaws that lie parallel to the probe may be
undetectable. The principle is a circular coil carrying current placed in
proximity to the test specimen (electrically conductive).The alternating
current in the coil generates changing magnetic field which interacts with test
specimen and generates eddy current. Variations in the phase and magnitude
of these eddy currents can be monitored using a second 'search' coil, or by
measuring changes to the current flowing in the primary 'excitation' coil.
Variations in the electrical conductivity or magnetic permeability of the test
object, or the presence of any flaws, will cause a change in eddy current and
a corresponding change in the phase and amplitude of the measured current.
Pulsed eddy-current. In this technique the classical sinusoidal current mode

is substituted by a transit signal such as a pulsed current. In fact, the pulsed
character of the electric excitation allows a high peak value of the density of
eddy currents in the material; also the broadband signal contains optimized
frequencies to probe the sample over a more extended depth.
Guided Wave testing (GWT) employs mechanical stress waves that propagate along
an elongated structure while guided by its boundaries. This allows the waves to
travel a long distance with little loss in energy. This technique is also known as
Guided Wave Ultrasonic Testing (GWUT) or Long Range Ultrasonic Testing
(LRUT), though it is very different to conventional ultrasonic techniques.
Infrared and thermal testing (IR). Infrared monitoring and analysis has the widest
range of application (from high- to low-speed equipment), and it can be effective for
spotting both mechanical and electrical failures; some consider it to currently be the
most cost-effective technology. IR is a technique that can detect internal voids,
delaminations, and cracks in concrete structures such as bridge, decks, and other
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civil constructions. The infrared thermographic scanning system can measure and
view temperature patterns based upon temperature differences as small as a few
hundredths of a degree Celsius. It may be performed during day or night, depending
on environmental conditions and the desired results. All objects emit electromagnetic
radiation of a wavelength dependent on the objects temperature. The frequency of
the radiation is inversely proportional to the temperature. In infrared thermography,
the radiation is detected and measured with infrared imagers (radiometers). The
imagers contain an infrared detector that converts the emitting radiation into
electrical signals that are displayed on a color or black & white computer display
monitor. A typical application for regularly available IR Thermographic equipment
is looking for hot spots. There are many other terms widely used all referring to
infrared thermography: a) Video Thermography and Thermal Imaging draw attention
to the fact that a sequence of images is acquired and is possible to see it as a movie;
b) Pulse-Echo Thermography and Thermal Wave Imaging are adopted to emphasize
the wave nature of heat; c) Pulsed Video Thermography; d) Transient
Thermography; e) Flash Thermography.
Laser testing
o
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Profilometer is a measuring instrument used to measure a surface's profile, in

order to quantify its roughness. Vertical resolution is usually in the
nanometre level, though lateral resolution is usually poorer. An optical
profilometer is a non-contact method for providing much of the same
information as a stylus based profilometer. There are many different
techniques which are currently being employed, such as laser triangulation,
and confocal microscopy. The Fiber-based optical profilometer version scans
surfaces with optical probes which send light interference signals back to the
profilometer detector via an optical fiber. Fiber-based probes can be
physically located hundreds of meters away from the detector enclosure,
without signal degradation. Profilometry is a technique long used in road
pavement monitoring AASHO Road Test). It uses a distance measuring laser
(suspended approximately 30 cm from the pavement) in combination with an
odometer and an inertial unit (normally an accelerometer to detect vehicle
movement in the vertical plane) that establishes a moving reference plane to
which the laser distances are integrated. The inertial compensation makes the
profile data more or less independent of what speed the profilometer vehicle
had during the measurements, with the assumption that the vehicle does not
make large speed variations and the speed is kept above 25 km/h or 15 mph.
The profilometer system collects data at normal highway speeds, sampling
the surface elevations at intervals of 215 cm (16 in), and requires a high
speed data acquisition system capable of obtaining measurements in the
kilohertz range. Many road profilers are also measuring the pavements cross
slope, curvature, longitudinal gradient and rutting. Some profilers take digital
photos or videos while profiling the road. Most profilers also record the
position, using GPS technology.
Vibration analysis (VA) is one of the most productive on dynamic equipment and
can be the most expensive component of a PdM program to get up and running.
Vibration analysis, when properly done, allows the user to evaluate the condition of
equipment and avoid failures. The latest generation of vibration analyzers comprises
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more capabilities and automated functions than its predecessors. Many units display
the full vibration spectrum of three axes simultaneously, providing a snapshot of
what is going on with a particular machine. But despite such capabilities, not even
the most sophisticated equipment successfully predicts developing problems unless
the operator understands and applies the basics of vibration analysis.
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In-situ Visual inspection (IVI) and Remote Visual inspection (RVI). The IVI is a
common method of quality control, data acquisition, and data analysis. Visual
Inspection, used in maintenance of facilities, mean inspection of equipment and
structures using either or all of human senses such as vision, hearing, touch and
smell. Visual Inspection typically means inspection using raw human senses and/or
any non-specialized inspection equipment. Inspections requiring Ultrasonic, X-Ray
equipment, Infra-red, etc are not typically considered as Visual Inspection as these
Inspection methodologies require specialized equipment and training. The RVI refers
to a specialty branch of visual inspection when the operator do not enter the
inspection area and takes help from visual remote cameras, such as video
fiberscopes, Pan-Tilt-Zoom cameras and others.
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ANNEX B Acronyms
AC
ACFM
AE or AT
AI
AMTRAK
ANN
ATC
BM
BOTDA
CBR
CM
CMMS
CPAS
CPU
DPM
ECT
EFNMS
EMATs
ERA
ERRAC
ERTMS
ES
ET
ETCS
FPGA
GPR
GTPdM
GWT
GWUT
HD
ICE
IR
IVT
JNR
LCC
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Alternating Current
Alternating Current Field Measurement
Acoustic Emission Testing
Artificial Intelligence
National Passenger Railroad Corporation
Artificial Neural Network
Automatic Traffic Control
Breakdown Maintenance
Brillouin Optical Time Domain Analysis
Case Based Reasoning
Corrective Maintenance
Computerized Maintenance Management System
Collaborative Process Automation Systems
Central Processing Unit
Detected Preventive Maintenance
Eddy-Current Testing
European Federation Of National Maintenance Societies
Electromagnetic Acoustic Transducers
European Rail Agency
European Rail Research Advisory Council
European Rail Traffic Management System
Expert Systems
Electromagnetic Testing
European Train Control System
Field Programmable Gate Array
Ground Penetrating Radar
General Techniques For Predictive Maintenance
Guided Wave Testing
Guided Wave Ultrasonic Testing
Horizontal Defect
Intercityexpress
Infrared And Thermal Testing
In-Situ Visual Inspection
Japanese National Railways
Life cycle costs: Include the sum of all expenditures of a specified asset throughout its
economical life. They include all costs associated to the initial construction, and all
expenditures invested until the replacement or removal (i.e. maintenances, disposal,
recycle).
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LD
LRUT
LUT
MFL
ML
MP
MPM
MRO
NDE
NDT
NMR
Possession
PdM
PM
PMSP
RAMS
RBC
RCF
RCM
RFF
RoW
RTPAP
RVI
SBS
SME
SNCF
SPdM
SPM
TD
TOFD
TRIS
TSIs
UIC
UT
VA
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Longitudinal Defect
Long Range Ultrasonic Testing
Laser Ultrasonics
Magnetic Flux Leakage
Machine Learning
Maintenance Planning
Maintenance Planning Models
Maintenance Repair And Overhaul
Non-Destructive Evaluation
Non-Destructive Technique
Nuclear Magnetic Resonance
When a section of the track is required for some activities. When these activities
correspond to maintenance, the common meaning is possession for maintenance or just
possession. The term possession for service indicates the track is utilized by train
services. Possession of the infrastructure: privative use of the infrastructure.Possession
for maintenance: privative use of the infrastructure for maintenance operations; it is the
ussual acception of Possession.
Predictive Maintenance
Preventive Maintenance
Preventive Maintenance Scheduling Problem
Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, Safety
Radio Block Centre
Rolling Contact Fatigue/Rail Contact Fatigue
Reliability Centered Maintenance
Rseau Ferr De France
Right-of-Way: The use of a section of the track for some activities. It is a synonymous
of possession.
Railway Track Possession Assignment Problem
Remote Visual Inspection
Stimulated Brillouin Scattering
Small To Medium-Sized Enterprises
Socit Nationale Des Chemins De Fer
Stochastic Predictive Maintenance
Systematic Preventive Maintenance
Transverse Defect
Time Of Flight Diffraction Ultrasonics
Track Information System
Technical Specifications For Interoperability
International Union Of Railways
Ultrasonic Testing
Vibration Analysis
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D1.1 State of Practice

SEVENTH FRAMEWORK PROGRAMME

Automated and Cost Effective Maintenance for Railway

D1.1 Report on the state of practice of railway infrastructure

Work Package number

WP1: State-of-art of maintenance in Railway & Other Industries

F.G. Benitez, N. Caceres, L. Romero (US)

N. Jimenez, A. Barragan, P. Cembrero, F. G. Benitez, N. Caceres, F.

CEMOSA, US, FRAUNHOFER, DMA

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

BASIC CONCEPTS AND DEFINITIONS .............................................................................................. 9

2. RAILWAY INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE..............................................................15

GENERAL MAINTENANCE ASPECTS.............................................................................................. 15

2.2.1. The liberalization of the Railway sector in the European Union................................................................... 17

INSPECTION AND MAINTENANCE OPERATORS ............................................................................ 21

2.4.1. Superstructure ............................................................................................................................................... 23

TRACK DEGRADATION AND FAILURE .......................................................................................... 34

2.5.1. Superstructure ............................................................................................................................................... 34

2.6. TRACK MAINTENANCE AND RENEWAL .............................................................................................. 48

TRACK MEASUREMENT ....................................................................................................59

MEASUREMENTS AND EVALUATION OF TRACK DEFECTS .......................................................... 59

3.1.1 Superstructure ................................................................................................................................................ 59

MEASUREMENTS AND EVALUATION OF DEFECTS IN TRACK GEOMETRY .................................. 68

The "unattended measurement" concept................................................................................................... 72

RAILWAY INSPECTION TECHNIQUES ..........................................................................83

Ultrasonic inspection ................................................................................................................................ 83

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE TECHNIQUES FOR RAILWAY INSPECTION ..................................... 93

Neural networks ........................................................................................................................................ 94

A REVIEW OF INFRASTRUCTURE MAINTENANCE PLANNING MODELS..........97

D1.1 State of Practice

Strategic level ......................................................................................................................................... 100

TRACK MAINTENANCE COST MODELS ....................................................................................... 102

RECENT R&D EFFORTS IN THE WORLD....................................................................111

EUROPEAN PROJECTS................................................................................................................. 111

ANNEX A GLOSSARY OF NON-DESTRUCTIVE TESTING TECHNIQUES ................123

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

Figure 45: Sketch of data processing .................................................................................................77

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

1.2 Maintenance classification

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

D1.1 State of Practice

To evaluate equipment condition, predictive maintenance utilizes nondestructive testing

1.5 Maintenance planning and scheduling

D1.1 State of Practice

2. Railway Infrastructure Maintenance

General maintenance aspects

The primary tasks of rail infrastructure are:

to afford conditions for the highest quality and reliability of transport,

to contribute to a sustainable development.

The management of infrastructure should respond to the following objectives:

to maintain and increase high level of safety,

to reduce costs, without however decreasing safety standards,

to improve organization, materials, equipment and staffs qualification in order to respond

Appropriate maintenance of infrastructure is vital to achieve the aforementioned goals.

Overnight possession takes place in the free-of-service periods (time-window). The