The Blaauwkrantz bridge

South African Railways and Their Rolling Stock

A Qualitative Model to Evaluate the Financial Effects of Innovations in the Rail Sector

The effective and efficient planning and execution of maintenance within the South African railway industry relies on infrastructure teams.Despite the critical role of these teams, there is a significant gap in understanding how to develop high-performance teams (HPTs) within this sector.Basic teams need to transition towards integrating the concept of HPTs.However, industries have been slow to adopt structured HPT development, lacking awareness of its potential to significantly enhance productivity and performance at the maintenance execution level.This research addresses this gap by theoretically identifying the key characteristics that define HPTs.The study's originality lies in its focus on assessing team morale, evaluating employees' perceived understanding of HPTs, and proposing tailored development strategies for the South African railway maintenance industry.The research identifies gaps between existing and ideal team morale and HPT development, proposing targeted focus areas and structured methods for achieving HPTs.The proposed methods and recommendations offer a strategic framework for senior management, human resources, and training divisions to systematically close these gaps, facilitating the transformation of standard maintenance teams into HPTs.By doing so, the research provides a novel approach to improving maintenance execution performance, which is expected to yield enhanced team morale, reduced railway incidents, and increased customer satisfaction.

Electrified railway systems are the current focus of energy efficiency studies due to the increasing constraints of environmental sustainability policies. Railway System Operators (RSOs), also encouraged by market deregulation, are thus examining how to update infrastructures and vehicles and/or apply new operating strategies. Given the intrinsic relation between railway systems and their primary feeding grid, each measure applied to a railway system impacts directly on the power grid which supplies the system. Against this background, this paper aims to ascertain the impact of an energy efficiency strategy applied by the RSO system on its primary grid. The energy-efficient strategy is identified as to preserve timetable stability and service quality in a passenger-oriented perspective. Moreover, a method to model the interaction between the systems in terms of power flow exchanges is proposed. The model is used to verify how an eco-driving technique applied to a metro system affects the state variables of the distribution grid. In particular, the primary grid, the traction power substations and the railway system are modelled according to real data. The case study is the Metro Line 1 operating in the city of Naples (Italy). The numerical simulations are carried out with a two-step procedure: first, the power requirements of the rolling stock as a function of the imposed operating service are calculated by OpenTrack® software; the state variables of the distribution grid are then evaluated by means of the power flow approach.

For over 70 years the South African state railway corporation has provided employee accommodation nationwide. The nature and evolution of Railway housing assistance is sketched against the background of a widespread housing crisis and in light of literature on state intervention in housing. A d hoc housing assistance preceded the sporadic emergence of diverse housing programmes, including rent rebates. hostel and township ‘construction and homeownership loans. Systematic housing assistance was developed in response to prevailing crises and shows a switch from Railways’ role as constructor to that of financier. Housing initiatives have been overlaid by racial discrimination, being directed to worker control and compensation for private market ‘failure’.

In this study, the performance of Sub-Saharan African railways systems (SSA) is assessed by using an integrated Entropy-MARCOS (Measurement Alternatives and Ranking according to COmpromise Solution) - based methodology. In the first phase, the Entropy method is employed to determine the weights of each sub-criterion of the decision model. This process identifies six main criteria, i.e., safety, security, internal business aspect, intermodal aspect, innovation, and learning aspect, and customer satisfaction which are further supplemented by 13 sub-criteria. In the second phase, the MARCOS method is used to rank the countries based on their railway performance assessment. Based on the results from the proposed method, a sensitivity analysis was carried out through a comparative analysis with seven other multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) methods. The results of the study indicate that the most weighted sub-criterion is the labor productivity (internal business perspective criteria) followed by the terrorist incidence (security criteria) and the number of employees going through training/exposure sessions (innovation and learning perspective criteria). Moreover, it was revealed that Kenya is the best alternative in terms of its railway performance followed by Ethiopia, Cameroon, Nigeria, and Ghana. Based on the findings from this study, decision-makers can be assisted during the operative, designing, and planning investigations of the railway system through the consideration of these parameters as insert indicators. Also, the findings can help as a benchmark for the performance analysis of other railway systems in other African countries.

Electrical dimensioning design in a railway infrastructure has high complexity and is strongly nonlinear. There are several parameters and constraints to take into account. The presented methodology is working to improve the decision making about the design, hence developing an expert system. The final set of possible solutions that the method is achieved is based on a pair of main objectives. On the one hand are installation costs, environmental impact, main electrical components costs such as catenary, traction substations, neutral zones, and the difficulty to connect substation to general electric grid. On the other hand are exploitation costs, such as maintenance costs and energy loss depending on the dimensioning design. A specific line discretization has been developed in order to distribute the critical zones along the line. Integration of a multiobjective genetic algorithm (NSGA-II), hence the code of the genotype, is another highlight. Electrical analysis, railway systems using single alternate current (1 × 25), and a simplification due to the search of the highest peaks of power demanded by the trains during simulations help to minimize the quantity of studies. Every simulation is possible by using a railway simulator, Hamlet, which provides modules such as infrastructure, rolling stock, signaling, and electrical. Designers have the possibility to analyze several scenarios with different railway exploitation critical levels, analyze electrical degraded situations, and finally obtain an optimal Pareto Front, reaching a powerful methodology to help in the electrical dimensioning design.

The Electromagnetic environment as encountered by Railways system comprises of emissions contribution from many sub systems including signaling, traction and communication. The Indian railway urban transport system faces much more complex environment considering emissions from other non railway sources including emission from road transport as the roads are running almost parallel to the railway tracks. Measurement of radiated emissions (RE) of moving trains in the frequency range 9 kHz–1 GHz is one of the most challenging and time-consuming preposition for assessing the Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) of a railway system. The concept of ‘Doppler shift’ has been used for numerous applications in various systems. In this paper, we propose that the Doppler shift can also be utilized for estimating the emissions of a rolling stock in moving condition by knowing the speed of the rolling stock and emission measurements taken during the stationary condition. The radiated emission measurements exercise was undertaken for Mumbai suburban trains during which the emission measurements were carried out for the rolling stock during stationary as well moving condition. Knowing the speed of the rolling stock and frequency components captured during the stationary condition the probable frequency components those would appear during moving condition of rolling stock have been computed using the Doppler shift principle. The actual frequency components found during the measurement of rolling stock in moving condition were compared with the frequency components computed using the Doppler shift principle. They were found to be within the agreement considering the resolution bandwidth (RBW) of the receiver, set during actual measurements.

The Centralized Traffic Control(CTC) System of Urban Railway is an element(subsystem) of the Urban Railway system to aim safety operation and efficient management of rolling stock in accordance with a train scheduling program in train operation ways. That's why the CTC System must be developed considering systematic and safety-guaranteed methods such as RAMS(Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety) refereed to IEC standards. The CTC System is consists of rolling stock, signaling, power supply, communication, and mechanical equipment and preforms control and remote monitoring functions. The technical activities considering safety process are very important at such an early stage of development in a railway project. This paper introduces RAMS activities and an independent safety assessment by <TEX>$3^{rd}$</TEX> Party focused on a safety applied to a development of the CTC system of Urban Railway and proposes the experiences as well practices.

The integrated rolling stock circulation and depot location problem in railway rapid transit systems

Train is considered as one of the primary means of transport for the people across various regions in India. With a route length of around 68000 km, the Indian rail network is the fourth longest in the world and millions use its services daily. Despite having an extensive network and infrastructure, train accidents are not uncommon in India. The recent incident in Balasore district, Odisha, is the deadliest train disaster in over two decades. Nearly 295 people lost their lives and several hundred got injured in the triple train crash. This incident has brought attention to the safety measures and infrastructure of the country’s railway system. Although the Indian railway systems have seen significant development, the lack of a robust signalling system remains a major issue for such massive mishaps. This study discusses major train accidents with their causes and effects. Then, it discusses train disaster categories and the railway disaster management plan. It also provides a brief review of State-of-the-Art safety systems to prevent train accidents. Further, this study highlights the role of signalling and telecommunication systems in the safe and speedy movement of trains.

The present day railway system in West Africa is the result of the transportpolicy developed by the colonial powers (France, Great Britain and Germany) at the end of the 19th century. lt is remarkable that no network of railways, like in Southern Africa, was brought about. The colonial railways in West Africa were built by the State or by a joint-stock company within the borders of one colony to export the raw materials from the production centres to the harbours. Nevertheless railways were built for more than economical grounds only, in West Africa they had to accomplish a strategic and military role by "opening Africa for the European civilization". Hargreaves calls railways the "heralds of new imperialism" and Baumgart speaks of the own dynamics of the railways, to push the European colonial powers further into Africa... The construction of a railway needed a very high capital investment and the European capitalists wouldn't like to take risks in areas that were not yet "pacified". It is remarkable how many projects to build a Transcontinental railway right across the Sahara desert largely remained on paper. Precisely because such plans did not materialize, however, the motive force they provided to such imperialist actions as political-territorial annexations can be traced all the more clearly.The French built the first railway in West Africa, the Dakar - St-Louis line (Senegal), between 1879 and 1885. This line stimulated the production of ground-nuts, although the French colonial-military lobby has had other motives. The real motivation became very clear at the construction of the Kayes - Bamako railway. Great difficulties needed the military occupation of the region and the violent recruitment of thousands of black labourers, all over the region. The same problems transformed the building of the Kayes-Dakar line into a real hell. Afterwards the Sine Saloum region has been through a "agricultural revolution", when the local ground-nuts-producers have been able toproduce forforeign markets. The first British railways were built in Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast-colony (Ghana). In Nigeria railway construction stimulated the growth of Lagos as an harbour and administrative centre. Lugard had plans for the unification of Nigeria by railways. The old Hausa town of Kano flourished after the opening of the Northern Railway, for other towns a period of decline had begun. Harbour cities and interior railwayheads caused an influx of population from periphery regions, the phenomenon is called "port concentration". Also the imperial Germany built a few railwaylines in theirformer colony Togo, to avoid the traffic flow off to the British railways. If s quite remarkable that the harbours at the Gulf of Guinea-coast developed much later than the harbours of Senegal and Sierra Leone.After the First World War only a few new railways were constructed, the revenues remained very low, so the (colonial) state had to take over many lines. The competition between railways and roadtransport demonstrated the first time in Nigeria, it was the beginning of the decline of railways as the most important transportsystems in West Africa. Only multinational companies built specific railways for the export of minerals (iron, ore and bauxite) after the Second World War, and the French completed the Abidjan - Ouaga-dougou railway (1956).The consequences of railway construction in West Africa on economic, demographic and social sphere were not so far-reaching as in Southern Africa, but the labour migration and the first labour unions of railwaymen organized strikes in Senegal and the Ivory Coast mentioned the changing social situation.The bibliography of the West African railways contains very useful studies about the financial policy of the railway companies and the governments, but only afew railways were already studied by economic historians. KEY WORDS : bibliographical survey, colonial history, economic and demographic consequences, railway development, West Africa

During railway operations unexpected events may occur, influencing normal traffic flows. This paper focuses on a train rescheduling problem in a railway system with seat-reserved mechanism during large disruptions, such as a rolling stock breakdown leading to some canceled services, where passenger reassignment strategies have also to be considered. A novel mixed-integer linear programming formulation is established with consideration of train retiming, reordering, and reservicing. Based on a time–space modeling framework, a big- M approach is adopted to formulate the track occupancy and extra train stops. The formulation aims to maximize the passenger accessibility measured by the amount of the transported passengers subject to canceled services and to minimize the weighted total train delay for all trains at their destinations. The proposed mathematical formulation also considers planning extra stops for non-canceled trains to transport the disrupted passengers, which were supposed to travel on the canceled services, to their pre-planned destinations. Other constraints deal with seat capacity limitation, track capacity, and some robustness measures under uncertainty of disruption durations. We propose different approaches to compute advanced train dispatching decisions under a dynamic and stochastic optimization environment. A series of numerical experiments based on a part of “Beijing–Shanghai” high-speed railway line is carried out to verify the effectiveness and efficiency of the proposed model and methods.

Crafting systemic engineering fundamentals into a structured design model that includes demand definition, systemic design, and efficient operations enables the railway design process to achieve viable solutions. The design model incorporates types of efficiencies that are fundamental to successfully operating new railway systems. A relationship between the geometrical layout of the new track and the technical efficiency of the dynamic hauling process and fuel consumption was determined. New results were obtained from simulation work done on the operating efficiency of the crossing of trains, and cast new light on the traditional formulae used for track capacity. The effect of total systemic efficiency on the resultant cycle time and rolling stock fleet sizes is demonstrated in this paper. The rail tariff and the internal rate of return (IRR) are interlinked, and the effect of inefficiencies on the performance and returns of the new railway project is illustrated.

This article describes the development of an intelligent system for railway risk analysis using fuzzy reasoning approach (FRA) and fuzzy analytical hierarchy decision making process (Fuzzy-AHP), which is specially designed and developed for the railways. In the system, FRA is employed to estimate the risk level (RL) of each failure event in terms of failure probability (FP) and consequent severity (CS). This allows imprecision or approximate information in risk analysis process. Fuzzy-AHP technique is incorporated into the risk model to use its advantage in determining the relative importance of the risk contributors, i.e. weight factor (WF) so that the risk assessment can be progressed from component level to the subsystem level and finally to system level. This risk assessment system can evaluate both qualitative and quantitative risk data and information associated with a railway system efficiently and effectively, which will provide railway risk analysts, managers and engineers with a method and tool to improve their safety management of railway systems and set safety standards. A case study on rolling stock asset risk analysis is used to illustrate the application of the intelligent system. (6 pages)