"This book presents a comprehensive overview of railway passenger and freight transport systems, from design through to construction and operation. It covers the range of railway systems, from conventional and high-speed inter-urban passenger systems, through suburban and regional and urban, specialist and freight. For each, it provides a definition, a brief overview of its evolution, the main design, construction and operational characteristics, the preconditions for the selection and the steps required to check the feasibility of its implementation."

Includes bibliographical references and index.

1. The railway as a transport system -- 2. Loads on track -- 3. Behaviour of rolling stock on track -- 4. Tramway -- 5. Metro -- 6. Monorail -- 7. Automatic passenger transport railway systems of low- and mediumtransport capacity -- 8. Suburban railway -- 9. Rack railway -- 10. Cable railway systems for steep gradients -- 11. Organisation and management of passenger interurban railway transport -- 12. High-speed trains -- 13. Tilting trains -- 14. Metric track gauge interurban railway networks -- 15. Organisation and management of freight railway transport -- 16. Heavy haul rail transport -- 17. Impact of traffic composition on the economic profitability of a railway system -- 18. Railway safety -- 19. Railway and the natural environment -- 20. Cutting-edge technologies in railways.

1