Situation
Localized settlement, sinkhole-type hazards and changing track performance occur along a northern railway that crosses wetland-rich, permafrost-affected terrain with shallow relief and strong hydrologic connectivity.
Rail · Permafrost · Hydrogeology · Modeling
Hudson Bay Railway
Integrating field evidence, geophysics, groundwater and thermal modeling to understand hydrothermal controls on railway performance.
Project overview
Understanding the problem before selecting the solution.
The Hudson Bay Railway crosses peatlands, wetlands and degrading permafrost where railway performance is influenced by more than air temperature alone. Water routing, shallow groundwater, thaw-sensitive terrain and infrastructure drainage can reorganize the thermal regime around the embankment. The work therefore treats the railway as a coupled hydrothermal system and uses field observations to constrain process-based interpretation.
Task
Determine whether terrain transitions and water pathways can be used to identify locations where advective heat transfer and thaw processes may be accelerating degradation near railway infrastructure.
Approach
Integrate ERT/A-ERT, thermistors, frost probing, groundwater and surface-water observations, RTK/GIS terrain information and climate forcing with thermal-hydraulic modeling. Resistivity-derived terrain structure is interpreted alongside drainage and hydrogeologic context to identify candidate thermal-hydraulic gateway zones rather than relying on a single frozen/unfrozen boundary.
Result / client value
The resulting framework supports more focused inspection, instrumentation and mitigation by linking observable field signatures to plausible hydrothermal processes. For an asset owner, that means stronger evidence for where to monitor, where to investigate further, and where maintenance or adaptation measures may provide the greatest value.
Why it matters
Technical work translated into practical decisions.
Convert multiple datasets into one process-based hazard picture
Identify candidate hydrothermal gateway zones
Support targeted monitoring and maintenance
Improve climate-adaptation decisions for permafrost-affected rail
Related work
Have a similar infrastructure problem?
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