Week 6: Rail Engineering
Fluid wagons, train fundamentals, deadlock-free intersection design, and automating a rail network end to end.
31 August 2026
Outline#
- Fluids on trains — fluid wagons as the long-distance answer to pipe throughput limits.
- Trains — locomotive and wagon fundamentals: acceleration, braking distance, and train length as a real design constraint.
- Intersections — signal patterns that keep crossing lines independent versus ones that quietly create a standoff under load.
- Stations — loading and unloading design, train stop naming, and why station throughput is usually the actual bottleneck.
- Automating train lines — automatic mode, named stops and simple conditions running a schedule with no manual driving.
Teaching team
- Professor T. Trupen — convenor