Railway engineering
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This article relies largely or entirely on a single source. (June 2025) |
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Railway engineering is the discipline of engineering which concerns the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of railways and rail transportation systems. It includes a wide range of engineering disciplines, including (but not limited to) civil engineering, computer engineering, electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, industrial engineering and production engineering.
History
In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the first railways were built for the horse-drawn trains of wagons in collieries and quarries, with the first materials consisting of stone slabs and timber baulks. However, the rails were weary with carrying heavier loads.[1]
During the Industrial Revolution, cast iron were added to the railway tracks to reduce the wear on the wooden baulks, which evolved further into iron edge rails, which enabled to flanged wheels' utility.[1]
In the early nineteenth century, as the locomotives came into the picture, wrought iron rails and steel rails developed to support heavy axle loads without longitudinal timbers. With the advent of the railway, a need arose for specialized engineers capable of dealing with the unique problems associated with railway engineering. As the railways expanded and became a major part in logistics, more engineers became involved in the field, probably the most notable in Britain being Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.[2]
Subfields
- Mechanical engineering
- Electrical engineering
- Civil engineering
- Railway systems engineering
- Computer engineering
Professional organisations
- In Australia and New Zealand: the Railway Technical Society of Australasia (RTSA)[3]
- In the UK: the Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE)
- In the US: the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA)
- In the Philippines: the Philippine Railway Engineers' Association, (PREA) Inc.
- Worldwide: the Institute of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE)
See also
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Glossary
- Light rail systems
- On-track plant
- Train control systems
- Rolling resistance
- Wheel–rail interface
- Energy electrification
External links
References
- ^ a b Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content.Bonnet, Clifford F. (2021). Practical Railway Engineering 2nd edition. World Scientific India. p. 1. Retrieved on 2025-06-27.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."What is Railway Engineering". www.rcea.org.uk. Retrieved 2025-06-13.
- ^ Page Module:Citation/CS1/styles.css has no content."Railway Technical Society of Australasia - Expressions of Interest". Engineers Australia. Retrieved June 27, 2025.
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