Some Remarks on Modern Track Geometry Maintenance

A short survey on modern track maintenance methods is given, concentrating on the developments in recent years. The ongoing refinement of the machinery should be shown as the influence of ITsolutions should. On top the economic view to the track infrastructure is briefly demonstrated. Further developments in track hardware solutions must respect the obtained high level of track work mechanization. However, with respect to presentation time some other ongoing developments unfortunately are not discussed. Prominent amongst those are: the advent of high grade rail steels like heat-treated perlitic steels, the experiments with bainitic steels and the introduction of hydraulically driven turnouts with special high-speed-prone rail geometry or the latest machine sets for general subgrade rehabilitation.