This thesis places the work of Dr Richard Beeching as Chairman of the British Railways Board in the context of Government policy towards the nationalised railways 1951-64, and examines the popular myth that Beeching and the Minister who appointed him, Ernest Marples, initiated a policy of railway closures and contraction. The thesis argues that Beeching's appointment and policies need to be seen in the context of the failure of Government policy towards the railways during the 1950s. The background to the Transport Act, 1953 is analysed. It is argued that, through this Act, the Government increased competition in the transport field, but was unwilling to accept, and unprepared for, the logical consequences of this change. The discussion of the Government's subsequent policy towards the railways during the 1950s argues that by intervening in industrial relations and price-setting, Ministers not only forced the railways into the red, but hampered their own efforts to encourage the industry to increase its efficiency. Government involvement in industrial relations, price-setting, investment and the withdrawal of unremunerative services is discussed. The Government's tougher approach to railway finances after 1959 (apparent in the 1962 Transport Act, tighter supervision of investment and the closure programme under Beeching) is placed in two contexts. Firstly, the growing recognition within Whitehall that the rise of road transport would limit the railways' future role. Secondly, the reform of the relationship between government and the nationalised industries in general. This discussion leads to a re-evaluation of Marples' significance, and a rejection of the view that Beeching's closure programme arose from a study of the railways in isolation from transport as a whole. Finally, the presentation and implementation of Beeching's closure programme until the 1964 General Election is discussed. The thesis argues that the social and economic consequences of closures were not ignored.

In recent decades techniques related to the measurement of elastic waves have advanced significantly. It is now possible with relatively inexpensive equipment to record amplitudes and frequency bands that were unthinkable two decades ago. This has led to the development of theoretical topics which application was questionable until not long ago, to profit from new technological potential in obtaining more and better experimental information. In this context the study of the propagation of guided waves in solids is presented as a knowledge that allows to detect damage with efficiency and economy in a number of structures in which at least one dimension is much larger than the other two. This is the case for rails, tubulations and pressure vessels among others. In this work, guided waves propagation characteristics are studied, first in a prismatic bar and then within the geometry of a rail. In both cases, dispersion curves were computed according two different work methodologies, first using an axisymmetric model and then corroborated with a model of periodic conditions. Finally propagation of a Tone-Burst waves were simulated on the analyzed geometries, leading to the discussion of how the waves scatter along its propagation. The results obtained were the dispersion curves of both sections. / En las últimas décadas técnicas relacionadas con la medición de ondas elásticas han avanzado sensiblemente. Actualmente, con equipamientos relativamente económicos es posible registrar amplitudes y franjas de frecuencia que eran impensables dos décadas atrás. Este hecho ha motivado que tópicos teóricos que hasta hace un tiempo tenían una aplicación cuestionable tengan que ser desarrollados para poder aprovechar las nuevas potencialidades tecnológicas en la obtención de mayor y mejor información experimental. En este contexto, el estudio de la propagación de ondas guiadas en sólidos se presenta como un conocimiento que posibilita detectar daño con eficiencia y economía en una serie de estructuras en las cuales por lo menos una dimensión es mucho mayor que las otras dos. Es el caso de estructuras tubulares, rieles o recipientes sometidos a presión entre otras. En el presente trabajo se estudian las características de propagación de ondas guiadas primeramente una barra rectangular y posteriormente en la geometría de un riel. En ambos casos, fueron calculadas las curvas de dispersión obtenidas con por dos metodologías de trabajo por elementos finitos, la primer metodología fue emplear un cálculo aplicando un modelo axisimétrico, y luego corroborado con un modelo de condiciones periódicas y posteriormente fue simulada la propagación de una onda tipo Toneburst sobre las geometrías analizadas discutiendo cómo dicha onda se dispersa durante su propagación. Los resultados obtenidos fueron las curvas de dispersión de ambas secciones.

The worldwide preferred method for rail joining is welding; flash butt welding (FBW) and thermite welding (TW) are the two main welding methods used for joining continuous welded rail (CWR) tracks. However, the welds still represent a discontinuity in the track structure due to variations in microstructure, mechanical properties and residual stress levels with respect to the parent rail. These variations can play significant roles in increasing the risk of weld failure under service conditions. In order to better understand how FBW parameters affect these variations, the two main parameters; number of preheating cycles and upsetting forces were varied in three 56E1 rail welds, welded by a stationary FBW machine. Besides, these variations were systematically compared with those that occur in a standard thermite 60E2 rail weld. The thermite weld showed a heat affected zone (HAZ) extent much greater than those measured in the flash butt welds. The flash butt rail weld with a greater upsetting force (Standard Crushed) showed a HAZ extent larger than those in the other two welds (Standard Uncrushed and Narrow-HAZ Crushed), while the weld with fewer preheating cycles (Narrow-HAZ Crushed) showed a smaller extent of the HAZ.All welds showed pearlite colonies with proeutectoid ferrite at the prior austenite grain boundaries in the weld centre, and in the thermite weld zone. The rest zones across the welds exhibited almost fully pearlitic microstructures, but the pearlite at nearly the visible HAZ extents was partially spheroidised. The partially spheroidization zone had the minimum hardness across each of the thermite and flash butt welds. The Narrow-HAZ Crushed weld showed hardness in the weld centre, on average, higher than that of the parent metal. Moreover, the averaged hardness levels in this weld were significantly higher than those in the other two welds. However, these levels in the Standard Crushed weld were slightly lower than those in the Standard Uncrushed weld. Although the visible HAZ extent coincided with the point of minimum hardness, the residual stresses arising from the welds seem to extend much further. Contour Method and laboratory X-ray diffraction techniques were used together to measure the residual stress components across the thermite and flash butt rail welds. The longitudinal residual stress distribution showed tension in the web region along with compression in the head and foot regions of the rail welds. The vertical stress distribution across the flash butt welds was generally similar, and the maximum tensile stress values were comparable to those in the longitudinal direction. While the maximum values of the longitudinal tensile stress increased with decreasing the HAZ widths, these values in the vertical direction were significantly unaffected. However, the longitudinal and vertical tensile residual stresses typically promote the vertical straight-break and horizontal split web failure modes respectively.

European Commission sees further development of rail passenger transport as one of the main pillars for maintaining and further strengthening of competitiveness of Europe. With rail passenger transport, as a growth industry that connects all the other sectors, we can count on further economic development in future while preserving diversity and beauty of European fauna and flora as well as growth in living standards. It was found that the trends in the use of railways in the Czech Republic and advanced European countries are different. The paper assumes that the role of rail passenger transport in the Czech Republic will strengthen in accordance with trends in western countries. The paper analyses the Czech rail passenger transport market. The Prague -- České Budějovice route has been identified as the most suitable for entry of a new private operator. There are strong streams of passengers. After completion of the railway corridor the route will offer extension of activities onto the Austrian market. The paper analyses the competitive environment. The main competitors are RegioJet and LEO Express. The operator can compete using low-cost concept, especially EMU trains. High quality of offered services will also play an important role. Leasing was identified as the most convenient financial instrument. Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats are summarized in the SWOT analysis.

Track stiffness is the one of the most critical parameters of the track structure. Its evaluation is important to assess track quality, component performance, localised faults and optimise maintenance periods and activities. Keeping the track stiffness within acceptable range of values is connected with keeping the railway network in a satisfactorily performing condition, allowing thereby upgrade of its capacity (speed, load, intensity). Current railway standards are changing to define loading and stiffness requirements for improved ballasted and ballastless performance under high speed train traffic. In recent years various techniques have been used to measure track deflection which have been also used to validate numerical models to assess various problems within the railway network. Based on recent introduction of the Video Gauge for its application in the civil engineering industry this project provides the proof of effective applicability of this DIC (Digital image correlation) tool for the accurate assessment of track deflection and the calculation of track stiffness through its effective applicability in various track conditions for assessing the stiffness of various track forms including track irregularities where abrupt change in track stiffness occur such as transition zones and rail joints. Attention is given in validation of numerical modelling of the response of insulated rail joints under the passage of wheel load within the goal to improve track performance adjacent to rail joints and contribute to the sponsoring company s product offering. This project shows a means of improving the rail joint behaviour by using external structural reinforcement, and this is presented through numerical modelling validated by laboratory and field measurements. The structural response of insulated rail joints (IRJs) under the wheel vertical load passage is presented to enhance industry understanding of the effect of critical factors of IRJ response for various IRJ types that was served as a parametric FE model template for commercial studies for product optimisation.

abstract: Urban planning in the neoliberal era is marred by a lack of public engagement with urban inhabitants. Henri Lefebvre’s ‘right to the city’ theory is often treated as a way to empower disenfranchised urban inhabitants who are lacking control over the urban spaces they occupy. Though the right to the city has seen a resurgence in recent literature, we still lack a deep understanding of how right to the city movements work in practice, and what the process looks like through the lens of the everyday urban inhabitant. This dissertation seeks to fill these gaps by examining: 1) how a minority-led grassroots movement activates their right to the city in the face of an incoming light rail extension project in South Phoenix, Arizona, USA, and 2) how their right to the city movement demonstrates the possibility of urban society beyond the current control of neoliberalism. Through the use of participant observation, interviews, and media analysis, this case reveals the methods and tactics used by the group to activate their right to the city, the intra-and inter-group dynamics in the case, and the challenges that ultimately lead to the group’s demise.Tactics used by the group included protesting, organizing against city council, and creating a ballot initiative. Intra-group dynamics were often marred by conflicts over leadership and the acceptance of outside help, while inter-group conflicts erupted between the group, politicians, and pro-light rail supporters. The primary challenge to the group’s right to the city movement included neoliberal appropriation by local politicians and outside political group. By possessing limited experience, knowledge, and resources in conducting a right to the city movement, the grassroots group in this case was left asking for help from neoliberal supporters who used their funding as a way to appropriate the urban inhabitant’s movement. Findings indicate positive possibilities of a future urban society outside of neoliberalism through autogestion, and provide areas where urban planners can improve upon the right to the city. If urban planners seek out and nurture instances of the right to the city, urban inhabitants will have greater control over planning projects that effect their neighborhoods. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Urban Planning 2019

Au-delà des performances économiques classiques, les entreprises sont confrontées aussi aujourd'hui à des exigences plus sociétales liés à la sécurité des hommes et des matériels, à la protection de l'environnement et à la réduction des nuisances ... afin de faire face efficacement aux impératifs du marché et des réglementations, aux besoins des clients mais aussi aux nécessités du développement durable. La maîtrise simultanée des ces performances considérées comme contradictoires et donc très difficiles à gérer, est ainsi devenue un enjeu stratégique pour améliorer la performance globale de l'entreprise. Cet enjeu se décline concrètement au niveau opérationnel du système industriel par le concept de maintien en condition opérationnelle (MCO) dont la finalité est d'assurer principalement le bon fonctionnement du système tout au long de la phase d'exploitation.<br />Par rapport aux différentes composantes du MCO, notamment le soutien technique et le soutien logistique, ces travaux de thèse, initiés dans le cadre d'un partenariat avec l'INRETS, se restreignent au contexte du processus pivot du soutien technique: le processus de maintenance. Ce processus est considéré actuellement comme l'un des principaux leviers d'action sur la performance globale des systèmes industriels avec cependant encore de nombreuses problématiques scientifiques à résoudre pour en garantir son optimisation.<br />Par conséquent les propositions défendues scientifiquement dans cette thèse, et qui s'adossent au contexte industriel du MCO des rails à la RATP, portent globalement sur une contribution au processus de maintenance en se focalisant plus précisément sur les sous processus complémentaires de diagnostic et d'aide à la décision. En effet, une première contribution a pour objet de proposer le développement d'un système de diagnostic (de détection de rail cassé) basé sur une nouvelle approche permettant de fusionner des connaissances a priori avec des résultats du traitement des mesures réelles issues de capteurs. Une deuxième contribution propose deux approches originales d'aide la décision en maintenance des systèmes à n-composants permettant de réduire le coût global de possession (Life Cycle Cost: LCC) d'un système complexe à partir d'une modélisation de la dégradation des composants, et en intégrant simultanément plusieurs types de dépendances telles que les dépendances fonctionnelles et économiques. Ces deux dernières approches portent sur les politiques de maintenance préventive, et plus particulièrement sur la maintenance conditionnelle et prévisionnelle.<br /><br />Contexte et problématique industriels de la thèse<br />Le rail est un organe vital dans le transport ferroviaire. Sa sûreté et sa maintenance conditionnent le bon fonctionnement de tout le réseau de transport. Les exploitants ferroviaires, ayant pour priorité d'assurer la sécurité et le bien-être des passagers, accordent un intérêt de plus en plus particulier à cet organe de l'infrastructure. En effet, l'accroissement de la vitesse des trains, de la densité du trafic, des charges par essieux et de la puissance des engins moteurs ont pour conséquence d'exercer sur les voies ferroviaires des sollicitations toujours plus grandes qui peuvent, à la longue, mettre en cause l'intégrité des rails. Le maintien en conditions opérationnelles de cet organe est devenu donc une préoccupation majeure des exploitants ferroviaire.<br />Par exemple bien que l'occurrence des fissures soit rare sur le métro parisien, la RATP a étudié de près les effets de ces ruptures sur plusieurs plans: mécanique, électrique, économique et sécuritaire, et a mis en évidence la nécessité de concevoir un nouveau système automatique de détection qui permet de remplacer la fonction de détection de rail cassé assurée auparavant par le circuit de voie (CdV).<br />Dans ce cadre, un capteur à courants de Foucault a été développé par l'INRETS en partenariat avec la RATP dans le cadre du programme national de recherche et d'innovation dans les transports terrestres. Ce dispositif doit assurer une détection de défauts de rails sans contact avec des contraintes électrique, mécanique, de positionnement, de pollution, etc. Ce système avait pour but initial la détection des fissures débouchantes. Étant capable de détecter aussi toute modification de la géométrie de la surface de rail, ou de ses caractéristiques magnétiques, le capteur permet en plus de relever quelques irrégularités sur la voie autre que les ruptures. Un étiquetage de ces points a été mis en œuvre ce qui offre au système de diagnostic, lors du passage du véhicule auquel il est adjoint, la possibilité d'identifier des points singuliers tels que les joints ou les écailles qui sont une source d'information très utile pour la mise en œuvre d'une maintenance plus dynamique et donc plus optimale. <br />En effet à l'heure actuelle, les actions de maintenance des voies ferrées sont essentiellement correctives ou sont exécutées à intervalles de temps prédéterminés. Dans ses études, la RATP a conclu que ces deux types de politiques sont trop coûteux et peu sûrs, et a mis en évidence le besoin d'évoluer vers de nouvelles stratégies de maintenance pour assurer à la fois la sécurité et la disponibilité des installations à moindre coût. Par ailleurs, des études récentes ont montré que la prise en compte d'un certain nombre de paramètres significatifs de la dégradation de rails devait permettre d'affiner les politiques de maintenance et, ainsi, d'améliorer la qualité de service, la disponibilité, la sécurité et les coûts. Pour aboutir à cette finalité, la maintenance des rails ne doit plus être limitée à la seule vision du composant (portion de rail) siège de la défaillance, mais à l'étude du système dans sa globalité (système à n-composants). Les décisions relatives à la maintenance ne peuvent donc plus être isolées de leur contexte et doivent s'inscrire dans un lien plus fort entre surveillance – diagnostic et aide à la décision. <br />Sur la base de ce double constat industriel en diagnostic et décision, les travaux de recherche menés dans cette thèse ont pour objet, relativement au contexte RATP, d'investiguer de nouvelles orientations pour les politiques de maintenance des rails permettant à la fois de corriger efficacement les défauts (maintenance corrective), et de les anticiper (maintenance préventive) en suivant des prévisions extrapolées de l'analyse et de l'évaluation des paramètres significatifs de la dégradation des rails (informations issues du diagnostic). Ces approches doivent se baser essentiellement sur les aspects d'optimisation des coûts liés à la maintenance et à ses conséquences.<br /><br />Approche proposée<br />Face à la problématique industrielle RATP genèse de cette thèse, la démarche scientifique mise en œuvre se décline naturellement en deux phases complémentaires. Tout d'abord, il s'agit d'améliorer le système de diagnostic existant (capteur à courants de Foucault) pour la détection des défauts afin de garantir des résultats fiables sur l'état de dégradation des rails. Dans ce cadre, nous proposons une méthode de diagnostic originale se basant sur une fusion de deux sources d'informations de natures différentes : Approche Locale et Approche Globale. La deuxième phase de cette étude consiste ensuite à donner deux nouvelles approches pour contribuer à l'optimisation de la maintenance conditionnelle et prévisionnelle des systèmes formés par plusieurs composants en tenant compte de certains type de dépendances, notamment économique et fonctionnelles<br />Organisation du Rapport<br />Cette démarche se développe dans le mémoire sous la forme de 4 chapitres :<br />- Le premier chapitre permet de définir globalement le processus de maintenance à la fois d'un point de vue général mais aussi relativement au contexte industriel. A partir de l'état de l'art sur les différentes politiques de maintenance, sont isolés de façon plus précise les processus clés de diagnostic et d'aide à la décision. Un premier constat est fait aussi sur les insuffisances des politiques de maintenance utilisées actuellement par l'exploitant ferroviaire RATP et la nécessité de proposer des nouvelles politiques qui sont plus efficaces et moins coûteuses. Ce constat permet de positionner le contexte de nos contributions et de les justifier.<br />- le deuxième chapitre est consacré à l'étude du sous processus de diagnostic. Son objectif est d'expliquer la procédure de mise en œuvre de l'approche locale que nous proposons. En ce sens ce chapitre est structuré en trois grandes parties. La première partie est consacrée à présenter et analyser les données fournies par la RTAP décrivant la structure des voies. A l'issue de cette étape, un état de l'art des méthodes d'analyse et de traitement de ces données est réalisé dans l'optique de choisir la meilleure alternative. La mise en œuvre de la méthode choisie est décrite ensuite en fin du chapitre 2.<br />- Le troisième chapitre complète le deuxième et présente une généralisation des outils utilisés pour la mise en œuvre de l'approche locale, puis il explique la procédure de fusion entre l'approche locale et l'approche globale.<br />- Enfin, le dernier chapitre est consacré au développement d'une démarche générique, basée sur une combinaison des réseaux bayésiens dynamiques et des processus décisionnels de Markov, pour l'optimisation de la maintenance conditionnelle et prévisionnelle des systèmes à N-composants.<br /><br />En synthèse, notre proposition fournit un cadre de modélisation théorique contribuant à l'optimisation du LCC d'un système tout en intégrant différents types de dépendances entre ses composants. La mise en œuvre de notre proposition est déroulée, dans un premier temps, sur un exemple illustratif puis appliquée en dernière étape dans le cadre de la maintenance des rails.

Wear transitions in the wheel–rail contact are of increasing interest since the general trend in railway traffic is toward increased velocities and axle loads. Curving increases the risk of flanging, causing the contact to change from an almost pure rolling wheel tread–rail head contact to more of a sliding wheel flange–rail gauge contact on the high rail in curves. Under wheel flange–rail gauge contact conditions, wear transitions to severe or catastrophic wear will occur if the contact is improperly lubricated. Such a transition is the most undesirable transition in the wheel–rail contact, as it represents a very expensive operating condition for railway companies. The contact conditions responsible for this transition are very severe as regards sliding velocity and contact pressure, and thus place high demands on both the lubricant and the wheel and rail materials. The focus of this thesis is on the transitions between different wear regimes in a wheel–rail contact. Wear is discussed both in traditional tribological terms and in terms of the categories used in the railway business, namely mild, severe and catastrophic wear. Most of the work was experimental and was performed at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH), Department of Machine Design. The effects of contact pressure, sliding velocity, and type of lubricant have been investigated, producing results that resemble those of other studies presented in the literature. The absence of research relating to the wheel flange–rail gauge contact is addressed, and it is concluded that a lubricant film must be present on rails in curves to prevent severe or catastrophic wear. The formulation of this lubricant can further increase its wear- and seizure-preventing properties. To obtain a deeper understanding of wear transitions, methods such as airborne particle measurement and electron microscopy have been used. Paper A presents the test methodology used to detect seizure and discusses the wear-reducing influence of free carbon in highly loaded contacts. Paper B presents the testing of seizure-initiating conditions for a range of environmentally adapted lubricants applied to wheel and rail materials; a transient pin-on-disc test methodology was used for the testing. Paper C presents the use of pin-on-disc methodology to study the wear-reducing effects of a wide range of lubricants. The best performing lubricant was a mineral oil containing EP and AW additives. Paper D relates wear rates and transitions to airborne particles generated by an experimentally simulated wheel–rail contact. The airborne particles generated varied in size distribution and amount with wear rate and mechanism. Paper E relates additional analysis techniques, such as FIB sectioning, ESCA analysis, airborne particle measurements, and SEM imaging of airborne wear particles, to the contact temperature. / QC 20100721 / Samba 6

The work presented in this thesis studies the load and loadeffects of traffic loads on railway bridges. The increasedknowledge of the traffic loads, simulated using fieldmeasurements of actual trains, are employed in a reliabilityanalysis in an attempt at upgrading existing railwaybridges. The study utilises data from a weigh-in-motion site whichrecords, for each train, the train speed, the loads from eachaxle and the axle spacings. This data of actual trainconfigurations and axle loads are portrayed as moving forcesand then used in computer simulations of trains crossing twodimensional simply supported bridges at constant speed. Onlysingle track short to medium span bridges are considered in thethesis. The studied load effect is the moment at mid-span. Fromthe computer simulations the moment history at mid-span isobtained. The load effects are analysed by two methods, the first isthe classical extreme value theory where the load effect ismodelled by the family of distributions called the generalisedextreme value distribution (GEV). The other method adopts thepeaks-over-threshold method (POT) where the limiting family ofdistributions for the heights to peaks-over-threshold is theGeneralised Pareto Distribution (GPD). The two models aregenerally found to be a good representation of the data. The load effects modelled by either the GEV or the GPD arethen incorporated into a reliability analysis in order to studythe possibility of raising allowable axle loads on existingSwedish railway bridges. The results of the reliabilityanalysis show that they are sensitive to the estimation of theshape parameter of the GEV or the GPD. While the study is limited to the case of the ultimate limitstate where the effects of fatigue are not accounted for, thefindings show that for the studied cases an increase inallowable axle load to 25 tonnes would be acceptable even forbridges built to the standards of 1940 and designed to LoadModel A of that standard. Even an increase to both 27.5 and 30tonnes appears to be possible for certain cases. It is alsoobserved that the short span bridges ofapproximately fourmetres are the most susceptible to a proposed increase inpermissible axle load. <b>Keywords:</b>bridge, rail, traffic load, load effect,dynamic amplification factor, extreme value theory,peaks-over-threshold, reliability theory, axle loads, fielddata.

Structures and material combinations, tailored for multiple purposes, are within the reach of vehicle manufacturers. Besides reducing the environmental impact of the transportation sector these multi-functional structures can reduce costs, such as development, manufacturing and maintenance, and at the same time offer improved comfort to the passengers. This thesis sets out to develop multi-functional design algorithms and evaluate concepts for future composite high speed train car bodies with the objective of optimising the amount of mass needed to fulfil all functions of the structure. In a first step complete composite car bodies were developed, optimised and evaluated based on global stiffness requirements and load cases. The knowledge gained in this step was used as requirements for the strength and stiffness of panels during the continued development of the multi-functional optimisation which, besides strength and stiffness, later also considers sound transmission, thermal insulation, geometric restrictions, manufacturability and fire safety. To be able to include fire safety in the analysis, a method for simulating the high temperature response of layered composite structures was needed, and developed. Significant weight reductions are proven when utilising carbon fibre in the load carrying structure of the vehicle, on component level as high as 60%. Structures can be made significantly thinner when using the algorithms developed in this thesis and wall thickness is reduced by 5-6 cm. Analysis carried out and extensive literature surveys also suggest significant cost savings in manufacturing, maintenance and use-phase, even thou the raw material cost can be significantly higher as compared to the conventional steel or aluminium alternatives. Results from drive cycle simulations showed that the benefit, with respect to reduced energy consumption, is in the range of 0.5-0.8% per reduced weight percentage, comparable to both automotive and air applications. The algorithms and methods established in this thesis can be directly applied for the development and analysis of future high speed train car bodies. / <p>QC 20130521</p>