WRI: What you can learn in 75 minutes

It’s 8 a.m. Do you like heavy-haul railroading?

Good, let’s geek out.

Brad Kerchof kicks off the Heavy Haul portion of the Wheel Rail Interaction conference here in suburban Las Vegas with Norfolk Southern’s research on superelevation and train speed in relation to curves. 

Superelevation is how much higher the outside rail, or high rail, of a curved track is compared to the inside, or low rail. Like a low-key version of banked curves on an automobile race track, this super elevation keeps trains on the tracks at reasonable speeds and reduces wear and tear on the rails and wheels.

Kerchof, who is NS’ director of research and tests, took a portion of a curve on NS’ Pocahontas Division near Maybeury, W.Va., and lowered the high rail height by two inches. He then kindly asked the division superintendent to slow unit coal trains from 40 to 30 mph.

And after train after train passed by, he and his team found that there was less stress on the rails overall — good to know. But that leaves one big philosophical question: are reduced maintenance costs on railroad property by “balancing” the track and slowing trains down worth it? 

Current practice, on NS anyway, is to set superelevation to accommodate the fastest train that is likely to come along the track (usually intermodal) rather than setting train speeds for optimal performance. 

Phew, it’s 8:35, time for Mike Roney.

Roney is a consultant with Iron Moustache and retired from Canadian Pacific recently after more than three decades of working with track.

He says that after reading the presented papers at the 2015 International Heavy Haul Association conference and thinking about it thoroughly, the world’s heavy haul railroads have a lot in common, besides the fact that they are getting heavier. Roney says those world best-practices now include:

•electronically controlled pneumatic brakes are becoming standard
•one-person crews are becoming more common, especially where they are supported by reliable and sophisticated software to manage train handling and fuel use
•increase loaded to empty weight ratios on freight cars
•longer trains with distributed power in as many as four locations
•wheel and rail profiles are consciously matched
•concrete ties
•wayside and onboard diagnostics tools

Dang, and it’s now 9:30 and time for a scheduled coffee break. 

When everyone gathers again, we’ll see presentations about keeping tabs on railroad wheels with built-in freight car sensors, how to monitor and manage rail integrity (think: preventing broken rails), and the latest on rail brittleness thanks to rolling contact fatigue.

I guess I lied, that was 90 minutes. Oh, and the video on top. That was the opening presentation from the heavy haul conference in Australia. We saw it again this morning — really cool.