I think freight and passenger rail take different approaches to track laying. What are they?

Question

Freight seems to have a fast and cost effective approach. While passenger rail seems to take forever.

This deals with the US railroad.

Answer 1

Track laying technology is basically the same, the rails dont know what kind of wheels are going on them and on almost lines they are for mixed freight and passenger use.

It may be the difference from one company to another or as simple as the difference from one roadmaster to another.

For major rail replacement jobs they usually bring in specialized crews and equipment that do the job very rapidly and efficiently.

For smaller maintenance type jobs local crews will be used with less sophisticated equipment and expereience.

My guess is that is the difference you have observed.

Just different priorities.

Answer 2

Well, I watched them "upgrade" a long stretch of the Union Pacific rail used by CalTrain here in the USA.

The did a 12 mile "Grade-separation" project, and what took the TIME was raising the road-bed 20 feet.

When it came time to place the ballast, lay the ties, and lay the track, they used incredible machines, and it went down in just about a week.

Then AGAIN... upgrades on OTHER stretches take forever... is it COST?

Answer 3

Hmm, what makes you say that?  The rate at which new routes are designed and built?  There have been very few new freight projects in the last 40 years.  And most of the delay in new passenger lines is political in nature - land acquisition, environmental impact reports etc.

Or the rate at which track is actually laid?  Passenger lines tend to be the same technology and parts as freight.  When they do significant upgrades, they often go for something exotic, which can take longer to obtain for instance.  Passenger lines were the first to make widespread use of concrete ties.  Passenger lines tend to be electrified.

Most of the research done in railroading comes through the Transportation Test Center http://www.aar.com/  run by the AAR, which is a trade association made up of the freight railroads and Amtrak.  The research done here has a huge impact on how railroading is done worldwide.  They run heavy trains 24x7 to test the durability of track components.  For instance they discovered frequent rail grinding can make rail last 5 times longer.  Now passenger lines and even the Chinese are grinding their rails!   Concrete ties went the other way, they were adopted for passenger and are now used widely for freight.  The passenger and freight research is being done within the same complex.

Answer 4

Passenger trains and freight trains run on the same track in most places.

In terminal areas and commuter corridors there are dedicated tracks for passenger only use, but the construction method is basically the same.  Concrete ties are more commonly used in passenger only corridors.

The thing that is probably slowing things down noticeably for you is that passenger route construction is involved with the construction of terminal buildings, platforms, and trackside facilities that take longer to build.

Answer 5

For "heavy rail", passenger and freight construction methods are virtually identical.  Passeneger routes may have narrower clearances where elevated platforms are used, but otherwise they are the same.

Light (passenger) rail is different, and in some ways more expensive.  While the track structure itself is not much different, it may have tighter curves and steeper rises and embankments.  The complexity comes from the software systems used today, for signaling mainly, as the systems are complicated and require a lot of testing and safeguards.