Stability and Riding Quality of Railway Vehicles

The so-called critical speed of a linearized railway vehicle is shown to be no useful measure for the stability of the system in practice. The important interaction between vehicle and track can be taken into account by the riding quality for a certain vehicle on every particular piece of track. The riding quality is determined by the accelerations transmitted to the payload, weighted according to comfort standards, and the relative displacements between wheel and rail. From the riding quality demands both for vehicle design and for maintenance of the track can be derived.