Pads ease track transitions

摘要

For safety reasons, when crossing towns, tracks are often elevated over streets, using short open-deck bridges. Since these bridges are much stiffer. than the adjoining tracks (Figure 1), they generally cause an increase of the vertical load fluctuations in the vicinity of the bridge abutments. This, in turn, leads to track deterioration at these locations, and to increased track maintenance costs. A similar situation is encountered at railroad grade crossings. These situations are aggravated further by high-speed traffic.