Significant investments are being made towards enhancing the reach of the railway infrastructure due to the vast economic benefits it brings. An inevitable consequence of the expansion of the rail network is the soft soil conditions encountered in the alignment. Geosynthetic encased columns (GEC) is a proven ground improvement technology which can be adapted as soil remediation technique for such conditions. In this paper, first an introduction to the concept of GECs will be given. Then the recent advances in the academic research on the GECs will be elaborated. As it is known, earthquakes are one of the most devastating disasters and certainly also have a major effect on transportation infrastructure. In this paper results of shaking table tests to compare ordinary stone columns and GECs behavior under earthquake loading conditions will also be presented. The brief recap of the state of the art on the geosynthetic encased columns including their earthquake behavior will be followed by case studies on three major projects where the site conditions and project requirements will be discussed. The significant benefits of geosynthetic encased columns in relation to project requirements will also be elaborated.