The lack of lateral resistance in a curved railway track can produce misalignment problems due to the centrifugal forces when the trains pass through. Moreover, most of the times continuous welded rails (CWR) are used in nowadays railway tracks, which can induce the track buckling as a result of thermal loads caused by high temperature gradients. A new sleeper has been designed to provide higher lateral resistance of the track. A finite element model has been developed to analyze the lateral movements of an actual curved track subjected to lateral resistance problems. Then, variations on the finite element model have been made to study the response of the track when different sleepers are used. Thus, the performance of the different sleepers in the modeled track has been analyzed, resulting that the inclusion of the new sleeper in the track can improve the lateral resistance between 39 and 55 % with respect to a track with conventional sleepers made of wood or concrete.

The higher education scenario is constantly evolving and COVID-19 restrictions traced a demarcation line with previous behaviours and practices. Even though the European Commission spends many efforts to monitor the progresses, indicate the challenges as well as to give the perspectives, innovating the way in which we teach, especially about heritage & design, is rarely a priority.The article presents an interdisciplinary learning activity carried out within the RAILtoLAND (RtL) project, a co-funded Erasmus+ project under the Key Action 2 “Cooperation for innovation”. RtL is a collective ideation platform to develop innovative tools to communicate the European Cultural Landscapes by train and it has the goal to explore the social and educational value of the railway landscape as a common heritage and as a catalyst for European identity.The workshop was carried out in the Sub-Apennine area dealing with two complementary and fundamental topics “Digital Heritage & Design Thinking”, experiencing virtual events and innovative practices for the knowledge, narrative and design of heritage and landscape. The workshop stemmed from an interdisciplinary approach: experts in digital cultural heritage, survey and representation techniques, geomatics, and urban and landscape designers brought together their expertise and performed a ground-breaking study activity. The learning activities involved areas in the Marche Region (Italy) through on field activities, and the Porto-Vigo railway line (Portugal-Spain) through the experience of a virtual trip.

This Special Issue focuses on the debate and recent trends in research dealing with railways, touristic itineraries, landscape and heritage digital documentation, while keeping in mind the goals of “The European Year of Rail”

Investments in high-speed rail (HSR) development contribute to reducing regional disparities and improving territorial cohesion. When studying the efficacy of HSR investments, the travel time (and effort) spent on getting to and from the HSR station is crucial. In large urban areas there may be more than one station, and a peripheral station may complement the central stations and become a powerful vector for development. The rationale of this paper revolves around the possibility of applying a methodology based on generalised cost (GC) functions to study the advantages of new HSR-related projects in different locations. With this aim, we evaluate a real example in Seville (Spain) to determine whether the improvement in metropolitan accessibility to HSR services justifies the implementation of a new peripheral station, using a methodology to assess the territorial accessibility based on GC functions and modal travel times obtained with GIS methods, followed by an economic assessment based on a cost-benefit analysis. The paper ends with the main conclusions and a discussion of the methodology applied, the reductions in generalised costs resulting from the new station, the relevance of the case study, the limitations of the approach and further research stemming from this study.