Strength and deflection of railway tracks: probabilistic finite element analysis

The authors examine the vertical loads acting on the track from a probabilistic point of view to show how the vertical deflections of the track can be calculated and interpreted statistically in the context of the simple beam-on-elastic-foundation model. Since the loads applied by train wheels to the track are random in nature, measurements at test sites provide data for determining their distributions. The paper shows the significant parameters to be included when deriving displacements from load data and how various statistical loads can interact with each other to yield statistical measures of deflection under the rail