Railway Interchange 2019

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Remediation of Ballast Pockets in a Railway Embankment (Room 103 A)

24 Sep 19
2:30 PM - 3:00 PM

Tracks: AREMA Technical Sessions By Date- Maintenance-of-Way, AREMA Technical Sessions By Functional Group- Maintenance-of-Way, Technical Sessions By Day- Tuesday

Transportation Technology Center, Inc. (TTCI) conducted a multi-year study with an eastern United States railway to quantify the benefits of geogrid and ballast drains in remediation of ballast pockets in a high embankment. The 30-ft high, 700-ft long embankment had ongoing problems with soft soil shearing and the development of ballast pockets, resulting in chronic and excessive deformation that required weekly track maintenance prior to remediation. After a Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) survey identified ballast pockets up to 7 ft in depth, a layer of geogrid between the ballast and the subgrade and ballast drains in the subgrade were installed in late 2012. This resulted in an immediate improvement in the embankment performance, reducing the track maintenance cycle from weekly to yearly during the first year. After 5 years of railway traffic on the 15 annual million gross ton (MGT) line, performance is still well above pre-remedial conditions as embankment maintenance is still currently needed only quarterly to monthly. Gradual deterioration of performance has been noted due to movement of the mid- to lower-embankment, which was not addressed during the geogrid and ballast drain installation. This work demonstrated that a combination of upper embankment stiffening measures and drainage improvements can provide cost effective remedial measures for correcting problems caused by ballast pockets. This work was funded by the Association of American Railroads (AAR). *Missed this Session or want to view it again? Stop by the VirtualAREMA kiosk located in the Registration area to purchase this product today!