Taiwan Trackwork Development - Nonballast Track System

The railway system with its high capacity, low energy consumption, comfort and punctuality now is the main stream of the inland transportation system around the world. The high cost and heavy load of the maintenance work of the traditional ballast track system have attracting the attention of the recent studies. The results of the research have come to a common conclusion that in the future the ballast track system will be replaced by the non-ballast track system. This paper elucidates the development history of the non-ballast track in the local railway system including Taiwan Railway Administration Bureau (TRA), Mass Rapid Transit System (MRT), High Speed Railway (HSR) and Light Rail System (LR), etc. The trend of future development of these systems under the influence of world-wide development of non-ballast system as well as the characteristics of the local area and technical capability of the existing system are also discussed in this paper. The recommendations and suggestions are proposed as references for the research work and real practice of the domestic and international railway industry.