GB/T 50262-2024Standard for terms of railway engineering (English PDF)

1 General provisions

1.0.1 The standard was drawn up in order to regulate and unify the terms of railway engineering.

1.0.2 It applies to the planning, survey, design, construction and acceptance of railway engineering works.

1.0.3 It contains mainly the technical terms that are common and basic in railway engineering construction.

1.0.4 Besides complying with this standard, the terms of railway engineering shall also comply with the provisions of the relevant current national standards.

2 Basic terms

2.0.1 railway: a traffic line on which trains hauled by a locomotive, or trains carrying their own power equipment, run on a track.

2.0.2 railway engineering survey: survey work carried out for the investigation, design, construction and operational management of railway engineering works.

2.0.4 railway engineering geologic investigation: the whole process of meeting the needs of railway construction by establishing the site environment characteristics, the engineering geology and the hydrogeological conditions related to the railway works, analysing and evaluating the geological conditions and compiling the investigation results.

2.0.7 electrified railway: a railway that uses electrical energy as the traction power of the trains.

2.0.10 heavy haul railway: a railway that meets two of the following three conditions: train hauled mass of 8000 t or more; axle load of 27 t or more; annual traffic greater than 40 Mt over a line section of at least 150 km.

2.0.11 high-speed railway: a passenger dedicated line with a design speed of 250 km/h or more, including the speed reserved for later, on which multiple unit trains run and whose initial operating speed is not less than 200 km/h.

2.0.12 intercity railway: a passenger dedicated railway, fast, convenient and of high density, with a design speed of 200 km/h or less, serving adjacent cities or a city cluster.

2.0.13 mixed passenger and freight railway: a railway on which passenger trains and freight trains run on the same line and the design speed of the passenger trains is 200 km/h or less.

2.0.15 maglev transit: a railway system in which magnetic force suspends the vehicle above the guideway and a linear motor drives the train forward.

2.0.19 design speed: the maximum train running speed allowed in the design of the railway technical equipment, such as the line, the track, the bridges, the overhead contact line and the signalling.

2.0.22 maintenance window: in the train working diagram, the time reserved for construction and maintenance operations by not drawing train paths, or by adjusting or removing them.

2.0.25 settlement after track laying: the settlement of the infrastructure produced after the track laying works have been completed.

2.0.31 track gauge: the distance, perpendicular to the centre line of the track, between the inner working edges of the two rails measured 16 mm below the running surface of the rail head.

2.0.32 standard-gauge railway: on a straight section, a railway whose track gauge is 1435 mm.

2.0.33 narrow-gauge railway: on a straight section, a railway whose track gauge is less than 1435 mm.

2.0.34 broad-gauge railway: on a straight section, a railway whose track gauge is greater than 1435 mm.

2.0.36 infrastructure: the collective name for structures that are difficult to rebuild once completed, such as subgrade, bridges, culverts and tunnels.

2.0.38 design working life: under normal conditions of use and maintenance, the service life over which the structure or member fixed by the design can perform its intended function without major repair.

2.0.41 ultimate limit state: the state in which a structure or member reaches its maximum bearing capacity, or develops deformation so large that it is unfit to go on bearing load.

2.0.44 train: a set of vehicles made up and coupled with power vehicles such as locomotives and carrying the prescribed train markings, or a multiple unit set.

2.0.45 multiple unit: a vehicle set with traction power, of fixed formation, which is not uncoupled in daily operation and maintenance.

2.0.47 heavy haul train: a train with a hauled mass of 5000 t or more.

2.0.51 railway gauge: the restricted space that must be kept free on the line, into which no locomotive, rolling stock, building or equipment may intrude, so as to safeguard the running of locomotives and rolling stock on the railway line and the safety of buildings and equipment along it; it includes the rolling stock gauge and the structural gauge.

2.0.54 axle load: the load borne by each wheel axle of a locomotive or vehicle in the loaded condition, expressed in tonnes.

2.0.55 ZK load: the abbreviated name of the vertical static load of trains on high-speed railways of the People's Republic of China.

2.0.60 integrated earthing system: the earthing system that achieves equipotential bonding through a shared earth wire, linking the earthing devices of the buildings and structures along the railway, such as houses, track bed, platforms, bridges, tunnels and noise barriers, with the electrical equipment and metal structures of traction power supply, power, communications, signalling, information and disaster monitoring.

2.0.64 railway construction land: the land lawfully obtained for railway construction works and used for the various railway infrastructure, stations and yards, and other related production facilities.

Relationship to previous standards Relationship to previous standards

The announcement of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development No. 34 of 2024, reproduced at the front of the document, approves this standard under the number GB/T 50262-2024, sets it in force from 1 August 2024, and abolishes at the same date the former national standard GB/T 50262-2013, which carried the same Chinese title.

The foreword states that the drafting group revised the standard following the 2019 plan of the Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, and that the first of the main technical changes was the addition of terms for maglev railways, suburban railways, the application of information models and integrated transport hubs.

Note on the printed English contents Note on the printed English contents

The document carries an official English table of contents. Three misprints in it have been left visible here rather than passed on in silence. Clause 14.5 is printed as "Traffice control" and is given above as "Traffic control". In clause 15.2 the word disaster is printed "disastar" and is given above in its correct spelling.

In the titles of clause 15 and clause 15.2 the Chinese term for the intrusion of foreign objects into the clearance gauge is rendered "foreign objection intrusion". The usual English for that term is foreign object intrusion, but since the wording is repeated in both headings it has been kept exactly as printed.