Railway engineering

History

In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the first railways were built for the horse-drawn trains of wagons in collieries and quarries, with the first materials consisting of stone slabs and timber baulks. However, the rails were weary with carrying heavier loads.

During the Industrial Revolution, cast iron were added to the railway tracks to reduce the wear on the wooden baulks, which evolved further into iron edge rails, which enabled to flanged wheels' utility.

In the early nineteenth century, as the locomotives came into the picture, wrought iron rails and steel rails developed to support heavy axle loads without longitudinal timbers. With the advent of the railway, a need arose for specialized engineers capable of dealing with the unique problems associated with railway engineering. As the railways expanded and became a major part in logistics, more engineers became involved in the field, probably the most notable in Britain being Richard Trevithick, George Stephenson and Isambard Kingdom Brunel.

In the modern 21st century concept, a railway engineer must also effectively be well versed in civil engineering so far as utilities such as water, drainage, water table level, natural gas, electric and internet lines are concerned. The engineer also must understand concepts such as working with a brownfield project, where sometimes parts of an abandoned line are reactivated and others are left decommissioned. They must also be able to work within a business environment, where sometimes expansion of railway lines depends entirely on business profits.