Engineers have developed a new rail track-cleaning system to remove leaves from lines – an issue that costs the rail industry millions of pounds each year. Delays to train services caused by leaves on the line could finally become a thing of the past, thanks to new track-cleaning technology created by engineers at the University of Sheffield.
The new rail-cleaning technique, developed by a team of researchers led by Professor Roger Lewis from Sheffield’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, uses dry ice pellets in a stream of high-pressure air which first freeze the leaves. As the pellets turn back to gas they are blasted away from the railhead.
The method was first developed by the group in 2015 and now after testing the technology on railhead treatment trains over the past two years and on passenger trains in early 2020, the technique has proven to be significantly more effective at removing leaves from the line, preventing delays and improving braking distances for trains than current cleaning methods.
The Sheffield cleaning system is able to clean parts of the railway network where current methods don’t reach; it is lighter, and it shouldn’t affect nearby railway infrastructure. The system is also better for the environment as it uses reclaimed carbon dioxide.
The researchers have successfully deployed the track-cleaning system on board passenger trains in a collaboration with Northern. This is the first time that passenger trains have been used to clean the track anywhere in the world.
Adding a track-cleaning system to passenger trains would free up the railway, reducing congestion, as extra railhead treatment trains wouldn’t need to be added to the network to remove leaves from the line. The cleaning system would also be able to be deployed on parts of the railway network where railhead treatment trains are often unable to reach, such as branch lines and track close to the platforms at stations.
As they often say on the BBC, “other systems are available” https://www.railengineer.co.uk/get-a-grip-again/
But none of these systems, even the current 1000bar water jets + sandite rail head treatment trains, is any good if the track is covered in a carpet of leaves, hence all these systems can only ever be part of a system approach to “managing leaves in the line and managing the effects of leaves on the line”.