Railway infrastructure has a wide variety of systems with complex interactions. This range and complexity of railway systems is reflected in this reference work with contributions from more than 50 experts from all areas of railway infrastructure in Germany and Austria. The handbook shows the state of the art and takes current regulations into account. In the individual interlinked chapters, the technical and operational principles and interrelationships of the railway infrastructure and the interaction between infrastructure and vehicle are presented in terms of scale and number. Routing and track layout design, railway superstructure, cable systems, safety, maintenance and system management are just some of the specialist areas covered. The concise but fact-rich and detailed presentation with pictures, drawings, diagrams and tables enables quick access to the required area of knowledge and the details to be looked up. Cross-references support the understanding of the complexity and close interconnection of the various engineering disciplines in the field of railway infrastructure.

This handbook is a translation of the original German 4th edition Handbuch Eisenbahninfrastruktur by Jochen Holzfeind, Jia Liu and Ferdinand Pospischil, published by Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden GmbH, part of Springer Nature in 2025.

It is aimed at practicing engineers, planning and consulting engineers as well as managers and decision-makers in companies in the rail sector. The book is also suitable as a comprehensive reference work for students and lecturers in transportation and civil engineering courses.

Dr. techn. Jochen Holzfeind is CTO/COO Fixations Systems at voestalpine Railway Systems GmbH, Austria.
Professor Dr.-Ing. Jia Liu is the head of the Institute for Transportation Infrastructure at the Technical University of Darmstadt, Germany.
Professor Dr. techn. M.Sc. Ferdinand Pospischil is the head of the Institute for Railway Infrastructure Design at the Graz University of Technology, Austria.