Railway engineering

In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the first railways were built for the horse-drawn trains of wagons in collieries and quarries, with the first materials consisting of stone slabs and timber baulks. However, the rails were weary with carrying heavier loads. During the Industrial Revolution, cast iron were added to the railway tracks to reduce the wear on the wooden baulks, which evolved further into iron edge rails, which enabled to flanged wheels' utility. == Subfields ==

• Mechanical engineering • Electrical engineering • Command, control & railway signalling • SCADA • Network design • Civil engineering • Permanent way engineering • Railway systems engineering • Railway signalling • Fare collection • CCTV • Public address • Intrusion detection • Access control • Computer engineering • Systems integration == Professional organisations ==

• In Australia and New Zealand: The Railway Technical Society of Australasia (RTSA) • In the UK: The Railway Division of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). • In the US: The American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association (AREMA) • In the Philippines: Philippine Railway Engineers' Association, (PREA) Inc. • Worldwide: The Institute of Railway Signal Engineers (IRSE) == See also ==