CASE STUDY 6: Low Adhesion Inspection (freight)
Background
Freight railway suffering from ongoing wheel flats, likely due to low adhesion
High costs associated with wheel maintainence and unavailability of wagons
Our practices
Off site data collection
Analysis of on-train braking data
Elevation profile
Canopy coverage
On-site data collection
Friction ‘survey’ including mapping friction coefficient using in-built tribometer GPS
Identification of high risk ‘hotspot’
Grey shaded area represents braking zones
Canopy coverage displayed as green line
Friction coefficient averaged over multiple site visits
Plotted against mileage using tribometer GPS
Monitoring of ‘hotspot’
Management
Friction measurements before and after treatment under a variety of rail conditons
Continuously monitor and optimise strategy, moving away from ‘one size fits all’ solutions
