Track Maintenance on the Korean High-Speed Line: The First Three Years of Experience

The paper documents experiences of track maintenance for Korean High-Speed Rail, KTX, during the first three years, especially on bridge, ballast and slab, and noise issues. The KTX track between Seoul and Busan includes 148 bridges with a total length of 112 kilometers. All bridges have ballasted track. The annual temperature variations cause longitudinal movement in the bridge deck expansion joints and loosening of the ballast and subsequent ballast and track settlement at the bridge deck expansion joints. Other maintenance issues included flying ballast that caused some damage to sound barriers and falling of large pieces of frozen snow from bogies onto the track at high speed caused in some instances of significant wheel and rail damages. Differential settlements of bridge abutments were observed which resulted from ground water flow under the abutment. The noise in tunnels with concrete slab track was about 5 to 7 dB higher than in tunnel with ballasted track. The connection part at the articulated bogie frame was modified and the gap distance reduced in an effort to reduce and optimize the noise level of trains traveling through tunnels with concrete slab track.

• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Suh, Sunduck Daniel
  • Kang, Kee Dong
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 88th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2009-1-11 to 2009-1-15
• Date: 2009

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: DVD
• Features: Figures; Photos; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 19+p
• Monograph Title: TRB 88th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Ballast (Railroads); Ballastless track; Bridge abutments; Car trucks (Railroads); Groundwater; High speed ground transportation; High speed rail; Maintenance of way; Railroad bridges; Railroad tracks; Railroad transportation
• Geographic Terms: Seoul (Korea)
• Subject Areas: Maintenance and Preservation; Railroads; I60: Maintenance;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01128760
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 09-2438
• Files: TRIS, TRB
• Created Date: May 19 2009 7:48AM