Approaches to substantiating the expediency of changing routing geometry with a complex plan of railway lines

Introduction. The subject of the study is the problems of ensuring reliable operation of the railway track superstructure in small radius curves on the example of the most heavy-traffic sections of the Trans-Siberian railroad. The main purpose is to create a comparative analysis methodology of sections under different operating conditions according to the criteria of railroad line layout and section length, which would enable to assess the feasibility of changing the layout of the railway line of curved sections. The parameters of the study include indices of a critical faulty rails output, presence of speed limits of 15 and 25 km/h, actual time expenditures for repair and current maintenance of the track for the period of operation after the last major repair.Materials and methods. The author employed results of the analysis of actual indicators of withdrawal of critical faulty rails from operation, issuance of speed limits, actual provision of break for repair and current maintenance of railway track on sections with different operating conditions for the elapsed period of the life cycle. The source data for the study were obtained from the automated systems of JSC “Russian Railways”.Results. The conducted research established dependence of the factors negatively influencing the operational work of the railway line section on the parameters of its layout. The obtained data of the comparative analysis showed a significant excess of the volume of works on repair and current track maintenance, the output of critical faulty rails and the presence of limiting speed restrictions on the section considered for changing the alignment in comparison with the section similar to the selected variant of the straightening project.Discussion and conclusion. The results of the study could be recommended for use as one of the sections of the feasibility study of the expediency of changing in the track sections routing geometry with unfavorable operating conditions related to the parameters of the layout of the railway line.