Concrete Slab Tracks for Railways

Due to the planning and construction of new high speed railways, the development and testing of the ballastless tracks, which started in Germany in the seventies, is now turning up again. The use of this almost mairitenailce free structure requires the assessment of the multi-layer system. For the slab track system Rheda/Sengeberg" the results of a calculation performed with a simple assessment method based on the model of the elastically supported beam are described. The introduction briefly reports on the historical development as well as on the advantages and disadvantages of (concrete) slab tracks.