Guest Editorial

Railways are under increasing pressure to deliver the economic and environmentally friendly national transportation system of the future, invariably with limited funding.While the many parts of the railway system, the lifecycle of which is measured in decades, can benefit from progressive advances in mechanical and electrical engineering, the fundamental restriction of 200 year old infrastructure provides enormous challenges to achieving the future goal. The cost of enlarging a railway, such as Britain’s, to European standards and thus accommodating trains of the size running on the continental mainland is simply prohibitive. However, by understanding the interaction between trains and the infrastructure, and managing this correctly, the existing infrastructure can be given a new lease of life by releasing space that was previously reserved for safety margins. Modern techniques of simulation allow the vehicle/infrastructure interface to be analysed accurately, and in doing so place less requirement for large margins of safety – previous unknowns are now known. By understanding the capability of the infrastructure in these terms, larger freight trains and bigger, faster passenger trains become a realistic aspiration, and enable precious resources to be spent upgrading only that infrastructure which is genuinely unfit for purpose. This special issue focuses on making the most of the railway infrastructure, but in doing so seeks to recognize that gauging is a topic that involves equal science from mechanical and civil engineers. It is only by breaking down this disciplinary interface that the physical interface can be optimized. The papers presented in this special edition reflect this interdisciplinary spread, and indeed reflect the fact that railways are, by their very nature, engineering without barriers. Ben Wilson’s paper on a gauging strategy for Great Britain sets out the intent of the former Strategic Rail Authority’s ‘Gauging Strategy’ that was intended to guide the development of the British network in a coherent manner, consistent with the entire needs of the industry and the country as a whole. The background work behind this paper was masterminded by a group known as the ‘Gauging Stakeholder Board’, chaired by Andrew McNaughton, Chief Engineer of Network Rail, and which subsequently metamorphosed into the Vehicle/Structures Systems Interface Committee, now tasked with managing this interface from both a gauging and a loading perspective. The remaining papers look at new techniques available to engineers to improve on the methods and procedures that have become established, and which should improve the economics of fitting large trains through restrictive infrastructure. Hugh O’Neill’s paper on gauging of Pendolino trains describes the process of gaining route acceptance for this new fleet of high speed tilting trains by mathematical means, allowing a train to operate that could simply not be contemplated without such analysis. Paul Allen and Javier Perez’ paper on freight gauging describes the application of dynamic simulation models to freight vehicles, potentially opening more routes to the internationally standard 9ft 6in freight containers. David Johnson’s papers on ‘polystyrene block gauging’ and gauging the capability of the British railway network look at novel applications of computer technology to reduce the need for expensive proving runs and demonstrate a means by which absolute gauging can be done ‘in reverse’ to design trains that ‘just’ fit the infrastructure. The paper on ‘gauging