A Review on the Role of Geosynthetics in Preventing the Excessive Settlement and Mud Pumping of Ballasted Railway Track Ramesh Gedela and Rajagopal Karpurapu Abstract Railways are the primary mode of public transport around the world and play a pivoting role in the day-to-day transportation needs of commuters. Hence, an improved railway track infrastructure demands high-quality control. Excessive settlement in rail tracks is a common failure phenomenon incurring an extra main- tenance cost. Installation of railway tracks on soft grounds is a daunting task for any railway engineer. Inefficient drainage results in storage of impregnated water beneath the railway tracks. Consequently, under repeated wagon loading results in a phenomenon known as mud pumping. The present paper mainly reviews the role of geosynthetics to mitigate the mud pumping, thereby controlling the excessive settlement and degradation of the track geometry. Keywords Mud pumping · Geosynthetics · Ballast breakage index · Deterioration · Interlocking 1 Introduction Developing countries like India have a huge demand for a high-speed train and freight corridors due to a rapid increase in population and urbanisation. Most of these developing countries have conventional ballasted railway track framework containing sleepers and rails resting on the layer system due to its low construction cost (Selig and Waters 1994). In addition, the maintenance of this track is economical and cheap (Chrismer 1985; Esveld 2001). In order to construct high-speed railway tracks and freight corridors, there is a need to improve the existing track geometry and subgrade properties to prevent excessive settlements and lateral spreading of ballast. Geosynthetics are widely used in the railway tracks from the past one decade to increase the serviceability of the track due to its ease of installation and low cost. R. Gedela (B ) · R. Karpurapu Indian Institute of Technology Madras, Chennai, Tamil Nadu 600036, India e-mail: rameshgedela1992@gmail.com © Springer Nature Singapore Pte Ltd. 2021 M. Latha Gali and P. Raghuveer Rao (eds.), Geohazards, Lecture Notes in Civil Engineering 86, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-6233-4_51 715