Railway Engineering And Planning Assignment

Assessment Task

Your task is to perform the design, planning and economic appraisal of a new railway line. When working as a railway engineer, you will rarely have access to all the information needed to perform the perfect design. Therefore, although the underlying knowledge needed to plan your route is provided during your lectures and tutorials, you will also need to use online searches and library resources to get a distinction. Where information cannot be found, you must use your engineering judgement and justify your assumptions. Note that not all information given during the lectures and tutorials may be relevant for your chosen solution and that not all sub-sections of your report require mathematical calculation.

Step 1

Propose 3 different high-speed rail routes connecting Manchester and Leeds (hereafter called HS3). Perform a high-level quantitative appraisal of the solutions and identify which one should proceed to the detailed design stage in Step 2. This should be based upon the most important variables, as justified/prioritized by yourself (e.g. the effect of the existing geography on the alignment, station locations and construction cost)

Step 2

Using your preferred solution identified in step 1, create a more detailed plan of the route, with the aim of maximising the Benefit Cost Ratio. As part of your report, you should address:

a) Earthworks design – Plan your route in terms of vertical and horizontal alignment. Justify and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of your selection. Extract vertical ground profiles and plan an earthworks strategy along your route. The vertical gradient should not exceed 2.5%. If your route has any track on an embankment, choose one location and perform a check against the factor of safety.

b) Track design – Identify and justify the type of track(s) used on your route. Identify the technical advantages and disadvantages of your solution. Identify and appraise the ground conditions along your route using British Geological survey maps online. Highlight the area with the softest ground conditions on your route and perform basic track design calculations (see appendix for indicative stiffness values). Research, suggest and justify potential methods of improvement.

c) Vehicles – Analyse and identify the preferred type of rolling stock to be used on your line. The vehicle must collect its power via overhead electrical equipment and the maximum allowable speed is 299km/h. Discuss any potential deterioration and/or adhesion challenges that might be experienced on the route. Hyperlooptype lines cannot be considered as a solution for this coursework.

d) Calculate and plot the speed versus distance curves (i.e. tractive effort curve) for your proposed solution, for both travel directions. Regardless of your chosen vehicle, assume it has the same tractive effort curve as a Siemens Valero train, without regenerative braking, and make all other assumptions clear. Use the gradient data from your vertical topography, however this can be simplified to reduce the length of spreadsheet calculations. Create a timetable, showing both travel directions, informed by your speed-distance relationship.

e) Environment – identify the most important environmental concerns across your entire route (excluding noise and vibration). For each type of concern, identify the most high-risk location on your route. Perform a risk assessment for each type, and mitigation strategy if required.

f) Noise and vibration

i. Identify the most sensitive noise receiver on your route. Perform a noise assessment at it, using the FRA2012 method outlined in your lecture notes

ii. At the same site as your noise-sensitive receiver, perform a ‘preliminary’ ground vibration assessment using the FRA2012 method

g) Construction plan – Perform your own research and create an approximate construction plan for the capital works. Estimate construction cost and the timeline of the scheme.

h) Perform a quantitative economic assessment of your line, using your design decisions from the steps above. Data related to typical railway construction costs is shown in the appendix, while a report benchmarking international high-speed rail costs is shown in the references. 

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