The authors proposed a ballasted ladder track equipped with a vehicle guide device to minimize damage in the event of vehicle derailment by a large-scale earthquake. The guide device is joined by a hinge to the outer-gauge side of the longitudinal beams on the track. In this study, the authors verified the load-bearing performance of the vehicle guide device through drop-weight experiments and evaluated its performance and buckling safety by numerical analysis. In addition, ballasted ladder track equipped with the vehicle guide device was laid experimentally on a loop line within the premises of the Railway Technical Research Institute, and its tamping performance was verified.

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This paper describes the static and the impact experiments using a wheel shaped contact shoe and prestressed concrete sleepers (PC sleeper) to simulate the phenomenon that train wheels are expected to collide with PC sleepers when a railway vehicle is derailed by a large-scale earthquake. These experiments clarified the following items: firstly, the maximum force obtained in the static and the impact experiments were almost equal except for the case of loading at the edge side in the longer direction of the sleeper. Secondary, regarding fracture mode, it became clear that flexure fracture, delamination fracture or shear fracture could be classified, not by the loading method but by the loading position. Thirdly, regarding contact stiffness, it differs according to the loading method and loading position.

A number of steel railway bridges have been constructed in Japan. Thin steel members used for the bridges easily tend to vibrate and generate structure-borne noise. Accordingly, the number of constructions of steel railway bridges tends to decrease in the urban areas from a viewpoint of environmental preservation. Then, as a countermeasure against structure-borne noise generated from steel railway bridges, we have developed a new type of the steel railway bridge equipped with a floating-ladder track and a floating reinforced-concrete (RC) deck. As a result of train-running experiment, it became apparent that the new steel railway bridge installed by double floating system has reduced a vibration velocity level by 10.5 dB(A) at main girder web as compared with a steel railway bridge installed by directly fastened track. This reduction effect was achieved by the ladder track and RC deck supported by resilient materials.