Ballast and Beyond

Prof William Powrie gave a talk about the future of ballasted track to the  Institution of Mechanical Engineers’ Railway Division at a Young Members’ Technical Forum on 6th July.

Prof Powrie gave an overview of the pros and cons of ballasted and slab track, and compared their relative performance  in terms of whole life costs and embedded energy.  He then described some promising discoveries arising from TRACK21 with the potential to transform the performance and economics of ballasted track by increasing maintenance intervals by a factor of two or three.