Railway system modelling - not just for fun

This article overviews the railway system modelling, which is an important and integral part of the design process, in a railway industry. The paper describes the technical systems of the railway and the problems and benefits of various types of system modelling, illustrated with examples. As modelling techniques improve, there is better integration between tools, reducing the number of different data entry processes, with the associated risk of inconsistencies creeping in. The view of the railway system as a set of interacting elements, people, etc. that the model need to give us different views of coherent description of a system.