Client Type: Railway industry team

Objective

To determine the effect of introducing a completely new fleet of trains onto an existing track infrastructure.

Approach

Corus developed a comprehensive programme of works to examine all the components of vehicle/track interaction.  In order to achieve realistic and meaningful study results, Corus took care to involve all project stakeholders including railway industry advisory bodies, vehicle owners, operators and maintainers, infrastructure owners and maintainers and the industry safety body.  It was essential to understand and reflect all points of view and interest in order to ensure that the study would be of use to all sections of the railway industry.

Method

Key steps in the methodology adopted to achieve the objective were:

• Conduct of a series of track monitoring visits to determine track condition and geometry and to survey existing rolling contact fatigue (RCF). 
• The generation of files for a vehicle dynamics programme – using the track and RCF data.   This enabled examination of the behaviour of both new and existing vehicles as they ran over actual site conditions.
• Using the results of the vehicle dynamics programme, conduct of a fatigue damage summation programme to determine the risk of each type of vehicle generating RCF.
• Examination of the overall results in terms of industry trends and specific study requirements.

Deliverables

The project delivered a detailed understanding of the behaviour of the new and old fleets of rail vehicles passing over the line and the effect on the infrastructure itself of each vehicle fleet.  Corus analysed methods of extending the life of the track system - including improvement of track geometry, re-railing and lubrication - in order to determine the combination of factors that resulted in the lowest life cycle cost for the section of infrastructure studied.

The study findings were made available to all parts of the railway industry to ensure that the effect of introducing a new fleet of vehicles could be understood and, therefore, managed in a pro-active manner.