Guard rail’s role in preventing derailment of passenger train at level crossing due to lateral impact

The guide rails (restraining rails) inside the track bed are used to minimise the consequences of derail-ments and widely applied on the rail bridges, very sharp track curves, rail tunnels, switches, etc. They have played an important role in preventing train derailments. This concept is used for preventing derailment of trains when they pass level crossings (LCs). The derailment accident simulations of a passenger train due to the lateral collision of a road truck at a level crossing are conducted by using a multi-body dynamics software package. A passenger train with five units and a road truck are considered. Most components of train are considered as rigid bodies and the road truck is considered as a moving block. The crash areas on both train and truck are considered using the crumbing elements (or plastic elements). Two scenarios – the road truck hitting the train on the first and middle units and the level crossing without and with guard rail are simulated. The simulations show that the guard rail in a LC can effectively prevent the passing train derailment due to lateral impact of with a moving road truck. The op-timal position of guide rail – the height over the top of rail and lateral distance between guide rail and wheel back, etc. for minimizing derailments need to be determined through further simulations.