Rail joints have a shorter service life than most other railway track components. The discontinuity between rail ends turns the rail joint into a weak spot, and consequently, into a track component demanding more frequent maintenance measures, which result in high maintenance costs. Moreover, difficulties are often found when assessing the damage condition of rail joints since damage conditions...

Cross-line trains, as a link between high-speed and conventional rail networks, will increase the complexity of transport organization and lead to significant challenges in dispatch coordination between the two systems. Based on the characteristics of high-speed transport organization, this paper deals with the necessity of dispatch coordination between high-speed and conventional lines from th...