01557516

Component

The North American freight railroad network is projected to experience rising transportation demand in the coming decades, leading to increased congestion along many rail corridors – an effect further strained by increased interest in expanded passenger service on shared rail corridors. However, rail lines in the United States are still predominantly single track with passing sidings, making double track installation a vital capacity upgrade measure. Previous research has explored the allocation of double track on idealized lines with evenly spaced passing sidings. Due to numerous constraints, existing lines often exhibit a mixture of siding spacing with single-track bottleneck sections of varying length. This research seeks to identify the optimal double-tracking strategy for lines with a more realistic variability in siding spacing, and determine if the result supports long-held practitioner heuristics for locating double track. This is accomplished by testing several build-out strategies on a representative subdivision under mixed freight and passenger traffic with Rail Traffic Controller simulation software. Results suggest the prioritization of connecting longer bottleneck sections first, as opposed to shorter connections first. Analyses also determined the delay-based influence of connection position along a route, as well as the time order of connections within the full progression from single to double track. While railroads must consider many factors in selecting capital expansion projects, this paper suggests that heuristics involving connection length, position and order have the potential to capture relationships between infrastructure and train delay, streamlining the decision process and facilitating the economic expansion of existing rail corridors.

This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AR030 Railroad Operating Technologies.

01550057

15-5734

English

15p

2015

Transportation Research Board 94th Annual Meeting

Digital/other

Figures; References; Tables

Bottlenecks; Double track; Railroad traffic control; Sidings (Railroads); Single track

Rail capacity

Freight Transportation; Operations and Traffic Management; Railroads; I73: Traffic Control

Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting 2015 Paper #15-5734

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Dec 30 2014 1:55PM