Sound propagation in railway line cuttings

Sound propagation in and around railway line cuttings is in many cases dominated by multiple reflections between train body and cutting wall or between the cutting walls. Typical situations were examined by a large number of scale model experiments. Based on these results a simple empirical calculation scheme was deduced to estimate sound fields in the surroundings of railway line cuttings. The basic idea is to compose the sound field from three parts: the direct sound from the wheels, first order specular reflections and a diffuse sound portion that is emitted from the upper edges of the train body. The scheme can easily be incorporated into existing railway noise models.