Over time, under the action of moving railway vehicles and temperature variations, the railway track deforms both in alignment and especially in the areas of the curves, the degradation process being self-generating. Given that the rehabilitation works of the Romanian railways are difficult, monitoring the geometry of the track and carrying out the necessary maintenance works in order to restore the geometric elements, respectively improving them for maintain traffic speeds are the main concerns of the Romanian Railway Administration. This paper studies the variation over time (years) of the geometry of some railway curves under the action of railway traffic and highlights the transformations that these curves have gone through, with emphasis on changing the geometric characteristics of the transition curves following the maintenance works caried out on these railway sections. Although the possibilities for improving existing situations on the field have been limited, efforts have been made to find optimal ways to redesign these curves. The paper presents the medium-term life cycle, 10-15 years, of some railway curves and proposes some ways of optimizing the transition between the alignments and the circular curves on the studied areas.

railway, track geometry, transition curves, monitoring, track maintenance, redesign