The vibration of fast trains is governed by a quadratic palindromic eigenvalue problem (lambda(2)A(1)(T) + lambda A(0) + A(1))x = 0. where A(0), A1 epsilon C-n (x) (n) and A(0)(T) = A(0). Accurate and efficient solution can only be obtained using algorithms which preserve the structure of the eigenvalue problem. This paper reports on the successful application of the structure-preserving doubling algorithms. (C) 2007 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.