The diploma thesis focused on study of the reconstruction of the railway station Rájec-Jestřebí. During the reconstruction it is necessary to solve the increase of speed in the main tracks to 160 km/h, full peronization of the station and modification of the railway substructure with drainage.

Railway noise is a very important and growing health hazard in today´s society.Railway systems pass through towns and cities and create noise. When trainsride through or over railway bridges, switches and crossings the noise increasessubstantially, causing great annoyance to the residents in the area.At the present time, acoustic regulations exist in most countries and are set to achievea good environmental quality in residential areas, schools, hospitals, offices andhotels.A few calculation models exist for railway traffic noise, such as The NPM 1996,NORD2000 and Cnossos-EU. The NPM 1996 is currently used in Sweden to calculatenoise propagation from railway traffic. To uphold the regulations set, it is importantthat the method used is as precise as possible. All of these calculation modelsare based on several correction factors. Today, the current corrections for trackconditions, that is railway bridges, switches and crossings, are not very accurate andneed to be reconsidered.The aim of this project was to investigate and quantify the error of the NPM correctionfactors and give some indication of how they should be adjusted. This is done to makethe noise prediction from railway traffic more accurate and thus protect the residentsfrom these health risks.The specific objective was to perform significant amount of field measurements ofnoise from trains on different steel bridges, switches and crossings, as well as on afew concrete bridge according to the measurement standard Nordtest NT 098. Thefield work was carried out over the period March to May, when weather conditionsmet the criteria for field measurements, in and around the Stockholm area.The results obtained revealed that the correction factors for steel bridges andcrossings are considerably lower in the NPM than measured in this project. However,the correction factors for switches and concrete bridges are similar to the ones inthe NPM. In this thesis, a part of the correction factors have only been invalidatedto a degree. It has been shown that each bridge is unique and perhaps there is apossibility of finding similarities between some type of bridges. However, much moreiv |measurements are needed to see any correlation between each bridge type. Thus,further and more comprehensive measurements have to be carried out in order toestablish new accurate correction factors for track conditions in the Nordic PredictionMethod.

published_or_final_version / Urban Planning / Master / Master of Science in Urban Planning

Rail and bridge infrastructure assets are critical elements of Canada’s transportation network and their continued efficient and safe operation is necessary to ensure the nation’s economic livelihood. Monitoring technologies that can detect changes in performance as well as precursors to failure are an important element of ensuring this efficient and safe operation. Digital Image Correlation (DIC) is a monitoring technology that has the potential to provide critical data for infrastructure assessment and to replace various conventional sensors with one integrated monitoring solution. In this research, the accuracy of DIC is evaluated using numerical, laboratory and field-based experiments. The sources of error of particular relevance to dynamic measurement using DIC are identified as (i) bias error in the sub-pixel interpolation scheme, (ii) the ratio of sample rate to the frequency of the signal being monitoring and (iii) the signal to noise ratio. It is also shown that the chosen sub-pixel interpolation scheme can greatly affect the accuracy of dynamic measurements. The use of DIC was investigated for field monitoring of both horizontal and vertical railway displacements at sites with good and poor subgrade conditions under dynamic train loading. It is shown that there is a significant benefit to using an absolute displacement measurement system rather than a relative displacement measurement system as the former can capture irrecoverable rail displacements in both the vertical and horizontal directions. Finally, DIC was also used for field monitoring of a very stiff reinforced concrete bridge during static and dynamic load tests. It is shown that when using DIC for deflection monitoring, corrections may have to be made to compensate for errors such as camera jitter and drift to acquire the most accurate results. Two potential correction methods were the use of a fixed reference point and generating composite images using average pixel intensity values from multiple images. It was found that using a fixed reference point was the optimal choice in this bridge test. It is concluded that DIC can be used as an effective displacement measurement tool for bridge assessment because it shows excellent correlation with linear potentiometer results and it can allow measurements to be taken without having to close the bridge. / Thesis (Master, Civil Engineering) -- Queen's University, 2013-09-26 15:40:16.744

The Railway in the News Media takes the railway topic as a specialized one of those the media deal with as a part of its general news.. The rail-news usually does not possess its own section - in contrast with some other specialized news topics, the railway news usually does not possess its own section. The railway topics occur in the economic, domestic or even the regional sections. Nevertheless, there are people specializing themselves in this topic in editorial staffs. Therefore, it is questionable whether the reservations about the quality of the rail-news are justified. This work attempts to research these processes. It deals with the professionalism of the rail-news processing. The work monitors impartiality of the news on the one hand and using of language and semiotics on the other hand. The basis of the work is a quantitative analysis of media contents dedicated to railway in selected printed media. The output is a summary of accuracy of reporting on operational, technical and historical facts about railway and of terminological correctness. It also examines the balance of railway subjects coverage in media. The research results in Czech news media making mistakes in specialized topic news. However. the mistakes are not too serious. Approximately one quarter of analyzed news contents were...

This diploma thesis "Principles of Equalizing the Tractions-engines Power Output of Foreign Provider of Railway Services" aims to delineate how inequalities in power output emerge and how they are later equalized by provider of railway services. This is one of the crucial topics for operating and putting together international trains. The theoretical basis is then used in the applied part of this thesis to describe and evaluate tractions-engines power output of selected foreign provider of railway services on Czech railway network. For better description there is also a balance of tractions-engines of power output enclose at the end of this thesis to illustrate the position of Czech Railways abroad. The analysis made in the applied part put stress on differentiating the long distance transport from cross-border international transport of passengers. Furthermore, this thesis deals with the implementation of the European Rail Traffic Management System (ERTMS) in the connection with compatibility of the Czech railway network to neighbouring rail networks with emphasis on train safety appliances and the project European Train Control System (ETCS).

The thesis covers topics related to railway transport of consumer goods. First, basic attributes of rail transport such as economic characteristics, history, development in time, infrastructure, and standards are presented. Second, major agents of rail transport and their functions are described. Third, international standards and rules applying to the railway transport are discussed, including the outcomes of EU initiatives as well as COTIF regulations. Fourth, a brief overview of consumer goods as an object of transport and further applications are presented. In the fifth part, a portfolio of quantitative instruments is described. Sixth, the final case study deals with application of the developed theoretical framework on a real business situation.

Level-crossings, i.e. intersections where railways and road meet in the same vertical level, constitute risk for the users of respective infrastructure system. The aim of this thesis is to examine possible regional differences between the infrastructural safety standard of level-crossings in Sweden. With the use of spatial analyses tools in a Geographical Information System, the differences between Swedish counties are outlined and mapped. By the use of a logistic regression model, the variables that increase the risk of an accident in a level-crossings are analysed. The results show that the variables concerning the level of protection, together with the location on a highway, show statistical significance of being associated with an increased accidental risk. The results of the regression model factors have been returned to the GIS in order to find the most hazardous level-crossings. Considering the train flows and amount of people living in the proximity of the crossings, the hotpots of hazards have been spatially identified. 38 level-crossings with passive or semi-active warning system meet the criteria and should be the targets for practitioners’ work towards an increased level of safety and reduced risk.

Esta dissertação pretende contribuir para ordenação de informações acerca das estações ferroviárias paulistas, ressaltando a importância da ferrovia e da arquitetura produzida no contexto sócio-econômico-cultural do fértil período experimentado por São Paulo e pelo Brasil, durante a segunda metade do século 19 até os anos de 1940, quando o declínio dos negócios ferroviários, processo iniciado décadas antes, torna-se de fato evidente. A sistematização de alguns dados auxilia a compreensão do tema no campo da história da arquitetura e do urbanismo, e também do patrimônio cultural, permitindo ensaios de leitura das estações ferroviárias paulistas quanto a aspectos urbanísticos, especificidade e ineditismo de programa, vínculos com a arquitetura erudita, potencial simbólico dos edifícios e o conteúdo revelado pelo patrimônio construído e ainda existente no território do estado. / This dissertation intends to contribute to organize information about Paulistas railway stations, emphasizing the significance of the railway and the architecture produced in the social-economic-cultural context of the progressive period experienced by São Paulo and Brazil, from the second half of the 19th century until the 1940\'s, when the decline of railway system, a process that started decades before, becomes clear. The systematization of some basic facts helps to understand the subject in the architecture and the urbanism\'s scope and also of the cultural heritage, and to allow essays on the Paulistas railway stations related to the urbanistic aspects, and program\'s novelty, ties with the investigations of the formal architecture, symbolic potencial of the buildings and the contents revealed by the built heritage yet existent in the state of São Paulo.

O objetivo da pesquisa aqui relatada é desenvolver um modelo de simulação estocástica capaz de reproduzir a circulação de trens em trechos de linha singela. O modelo é usado para avaliar o impacto que determinadas alterações podem provocar sobre o desempenho do sistema. Os fatores estudados são o número de estações existentes, os horários de partida dos trens, os tempos de parada nas estações e a velocidade média dos trens, que foram combinados em sete cenários diferentes. Os efeitos das alterações propostas são avaliados em termos do tempo total de percurso dos trens, o tempo médio de espera nas estações, a fila média, o tempo em que os trens ficam parados e circuIando, os tempos de ocupação dos desvios e a velocidade média dos trens. / The objective ofthis research isto develop a stochastic simulation model capable to reproduce the circulation of trains on a single track line. The proposed model is used to assess the impact of certain changes on the overall performance of the system. Seven different scenarios are used with this purpose. These scenarios include changes in the number of stations, train departure times, duration of stopping times at the stations and the train average speeds. The overall effect of these changes on the system is assessed by means of the trains total travel times, average waiting times at the stations, average queue lengths, running and stopping times, occupation times for sidings and the overall average speed for trains.