Railway Engineering MCQ With Answers for JKSSB Junior Engineer (Civil)

Railway engineering carried 10 marks in the board's earlier Junior Engineer (Civil) syllabus. It lists the history of Indian railways, the gauges used, the permanent way and its components, types of rails, creep, welding, rail fixtures and fastenings, signalling, points and crossings, and bridge terminology, classification, components and foundations. The board's 2025 paper had 120 one-mark questions in 120 minutes. Our guide to the 2026 notice shows where this section fits. This page gives a revision list, worked problems and solved MCQs.

Quick revision list

• Gauges: broad 1,676 mm, metre 1,000 mm, narrow 762 mm and 610 mm, and the standard gauge of 1,435 mm
• Permanent way: rails, sleepers, ballast, fixtures and fastenings, and the formation
• Rails: double headed, bull headed and flat footed, with the flat-footed rail the most common
• Sleepers: wooden, steel, cast iron and concrete (prestressed concrete is widely used), and the sleeper density
• Ballast: broken stone, its function in distributing load and giving drainage and elasticity
• Creep: the longitudinal movement of rails, its causes and how it is reduced
• Geometry: coning of wheels at 1 in 20, tilt of rails at 1 in 20, and cant on curves
• Points and crossings: the switch, the stock rail, the tongue rail, the crossing and the number of a crossing
• Signals and bridges: stop and warning signals, interlocking, and the parts of a bridge such as the abutment, pier and foundation

Worked numerical problems

• Cant: for the broad gauge with G = 1,750 mm, a speed of 80 km/h and a curve of radius 1,000 m, C = 1,750 × 80² ÷ (127 × 1,000) = 88.2 mm
• Cant on a sharper curve: at 100 km/h on a curve of radius 800 m, C = 1,750 × 100² ÷ (127 × 800) = 172 mm, which is more than the maximum cant of 165 mm allowed on the broad gauge, so the speed has to be restricted
• Gauge difference: the broad gauge is wider than the metre gauge by 1,676 − 1,000 = 676 mm
• Rail length: a 13 m rail laid in a track of 1 km needs about 1,000 ÷ 13 = 77 rails in each line
• Coning: a wheel tread slope of 1 in 20 means that the tread falls 5 mm over a 100 mm width
• Speed limit from cant: a cant of 88.2 mm on a 1,000 m curve is just right for 80 km/h, and a train going slower than the equilibrium speed presses on the inner rail

Creep, points and crossings in brief

Creep is the slow movement of rails along the track in the direction of the traffic. It is caused by the wave action of the rail under moving loads, the pushing action of wheels, and changes in temperature. It is checked by anchors and by firm ballast, and by using sufficient fastenings. A turnout lets a train move from one track to another. It has a pair of switches, each with a tongue rail and a stock rail, a crossing where the rails cross, and lead rails between them. The number of a crossing is the ratio of the length to the spread of the two crossing rails, so a 1 in 12 crossing is gentler than a 1 in 8.5.

Common mistakes

• Mixing up the gauges: broad is 1,676 mm and metre is 1,000 mm
• Using the gauge in metres in the cant formula that expects millimetres
• Confusing coning of wheels (1 in 20) with the cant on a curve
• Calling creep a vertical movement, when it is a movement along the track

Rails and sleepers in brief

A rail must carry the wheel load and guide the train. Its weight is given in kilograms per metre, and heavier sections such as the 52 kg and 60 kg rails are used on busy lines. Rails are joined with fish plates and bolts, or welded into long lengths to give a smoother ride. Sleepers hold the rails at the correct gauge and pass the load to the ballast, and the number of sleepers per rail length, called the sleeper density, is chosen from the traffic and the speed.

Practise

Work the solved questions below, then read the Junior Engineer (Civil) guide for the dates and the marks for every subject. The other subject pages in this series cover highway engineering, water supply, RCC and construction management.