Moving from Exception- to Performance-based
Track Geometry Monitoring Systems
(continued)
After completing beta testing, the FRA
will make ATIP inspection data available online. Access will be made through
the Track Data Management System™ (TDMS), which utilizes a GIS as
the main interface and provides GPS location data, as well. With approximately
five years of geometry data available for viewing, TDMS users will be able
to access previous inspection data (from their respective railroads) to
analyze track quality degradation and other conditions.
A Rail Impact Sensor (RIS), recently developed and evaluated under ATIP, will
help identify "stress-state" locations. In preliminary tests the system,
which incorporates an array of accelerometers mounted on the journals of the
T2000 car, detected about three events, typically related to damaged frogs and
gapped, chipped or battered joints, per 100 miles of mainline track.
To ensure that the current crop of automated track geometry cars perform as precisely
and reliably as the "rolling laboratories" they've become, ATIP is
adopting ISO 17025 Laboratory Standards. "My philosophy as we progress through
this technology is that quality has no fear of time," Clouse said.
The Union Pacific Experience
While many railways use inspection vehicles only to identify safety exceptions
and maintenance requirements, UP has become more focused on using the data
to identify trends and to plan near- and long-term maintenance. In order to
do so, UP must get its detector cars over the property on a regular basis.
But with an average 2,700 trains per day operating on 33,000 route miles of
track, that's no small challenge. To meet it, UP operates 22 detector cars
per day (about 140,000 miles per year) and evaluates geometry on about 55,000
miles of track per year. "The core of our track inspection still consists
of track inspectors in high rail vehicles," David Connell, UP's general
director of engineering technology, told conference delegates. Overall, 387
track inspectors are on track every day, inspecting 4.3 million track inspector
miles per year, he said.
In order to increase the frequency of testing across the system, UP has begun
using a hi-rail based geometry system. UP added a 7,500-pound, hydraulically
driven weight table to a FL70 Freightliner to load the front axle to 12,000
pounds—the weight needed to seat the rail and obtain angle-of-attack
and vertical loading readings. The truck is outfitted with an Andian Technologies'
geometry system, which provides strip and exception charts, and downloads the
data to Omaha each night. Operating at 25 mph (UP will petition for a waiver
to increase testing speeds to 30 mph), the vehicle can test about 100 miles
per day. "The vehicle will be used to test secondary mainlines, yard tracks
and sidings, and allow the big cars to concentrate on critical and premium
routes," said Thomas Toth, UP's senior manager of Tack Evaluation.
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