Department of Road & Railway Engineering

Pavement & Railway Engineering is a national key discipline with a long history. Since Southwest Jiaotong University was founded in 1896, Railway Engineering has been one of the core disciplines, toward which quality resources are tilted to promote its development. During the massive adjustment of colleges and universities in 1952, the school massed eminent teachers and students from Tsinghua University and Chongqing University, securing the leading role of railway engineering in China. The school was approved to confer the doctorate degree in railway engineering in 1986, to establish a postdoctoral research center of the discipline in 1992, to confer the doctoral degree to the first-level discipline in 1998, and to set up the post of distinguished professor of Cheung Kong Scholars in the discipline in 1999. The discipline was escalated as a national key disciplines in 2002. It is a key discipline under the “211” programme and “985 Project Innovation Platform on Rail Transit & Transportation Engineering” .

Pavement & Railway Engineering is one of the most powerful disciplines among domestic colleges and universities and also enjoys a high reputation in the world. It is the only one of its kind with two key platforms, MOE Key Laboratory of High-speed Railway Engineering and Sichuan Provincial Key Laboratory of Highway Engineering. Its graduates are molded to be professionals in surveying, design, construction, maintenance and management of railway and road, including 1 academician of CAE and 1 master of surveying and design. Most of chief engineers and practitioners of railway surveying and design institutes are graduates in the programme.

The university is authorized to confer master’s degree and doctoral degree under the programme of Highway and Railway Engineering and to establish the post of distinguished professor of Cheung Kong Scholars. Post-doctoral staff could be transferred to the Post-doctoral Research Centers of “Transportation Engineering" and "Civil Engineering”. The teaching faculty consists of 13 professors, 9 associate professors and 10 lecturers, of whom 11 are doctoral supervisors and 26 doctoral degree holders, including 1 National Eminent Teacher, 1 scholar under “Special Support Programme for New Century Excellent Talents in University” (NCET), 2 Sichuan Provincial Specialists with Outstanding Contributions and 2 leaders in scientific and technological development in Sichuan Province.

Pavement& Railway Engineering covers 4 main research orientations: High-speed and Heavy-load Track Structure and Track Dynamics (Track), Design Theories of Geotechnical Structure of Subgrade Engineering (Subgrade), Modern Technology of Railway Line Surveying and Design(Route Selection) and Highways, Urban Roads and Airports (Pavement).

In recent years, breakthrough achievements have been made in basic theories and technological application, like wheel-rail system dynamics and its application, passenger-dedicated line turnout, ballastless track, design theories and methods of high-speed railway subgrade, development of new-type subgrade structures, theories of modern line selection system based on virtual environment, prevention and control technology of geological disasters in railways and highways, reaching the leading level in China and even in the world. In the recent five years, over 10 national-level projects and 30 provincial and ministerial-level projects in the discipline have been approved, includingprojects under National Programme on Key Basic Research Project (973 Programme) and National High-tech Development Programme (863 Programme) and projects by National Science Foundation, and about 10 monographs and textbooks and over 500 papers have been published (200 articles covered in SCI / EI), winning 20 national grants, 6 software copyrights, 3 national science and technology awards and 20 provincial and ministerial science and technology awards.