(15/04/2021) 
On this first edition of the UIC Excellence in Standardisation award, the document awarded is called "Earthworks and track bed layers for railway lines – Design and construction principles”, whose main author is the Geotechnical Laboratory of CEDEX.

This document, of a regulatory nature, covers areas related to the requirements that must be met by the materials, the design criteria, and the construction procedures and quality control of the earthworks that are used in railway lines to support track bed layers according to Eurocode 7 and the European Standard EN 16907 on earth structures.

UIC develops and distributes International Railway Solutions (IRSs) in order to help railway stakeholders achieve further harmonisation and collaboration. This involves the strict compliance with quality standards and procedures.

Document

The awarded standard document, IRS 70719, provides the definitions, principles and general rules for the design of earthworks to be used in railway lines to support track bed layers.

The document begins with the definition of a cross section of a railway track, both for ballasted and slab track. Then there is a description of the requirements to be met by the materials used to build the different layers that form the railway tracks (embankment, prepared subgrade, and sub-ballast and ballast layers).

Following that, design principles and criteria for new lines are established. These criteria are based on the Eurocode 7 regulatory framework and on the requirements derived from the European Standard EN 16907 related to earth structures, which has been recently published by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN). Additionally, the document includes the construction procedures and quality control that must be carried out.