Sue Morant

Allen Goff, vice-president, freight sales, with Pandrol USA, looks at the challenges facing heavy-haul railways and why it is important to get the rail fastening specification right from the outset.

Joel Kindt, Joseph Brosseau, and Alan Polivka with Transportation Technology Center Inc (TTCI), United States, explore one of the critical elements related to increasing capacity while leveraging PTC infrastructure. They identify track circuits as one of the limiting factors in trying to increase capacity and provide a concept for a next-generation track circuit with moving block operation.

Vossloh is optimising its rail fastening systems by developing new tension clamps and other fastening components. This is being achieved thanks to a new co-simulation of FEM and MBS models, as Dr-Ing Duo Liu and Dr-Ing Sven Kretzschmar, engineers with Vossloh Fastening Systems’ research and development department, explain.

Railways are using optical fibre sensing networks to switch from scheduled to condition-based and predictive maintenance, explains Shun-Yee Liu, Hwa-Yaw Tam, and Kang-Kuen Lee from Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s electrical engineering department, and Kei-Chun Cheng from Volant Railway Technologies, Hong Kong.

China is embarking on a hugely ambitious project to build a new railway between Chengdu and Lhasa in Tibet. Xinhua’s Yu Fei outlines the project and the environmental challenges facing its contractors and engineers.

In a bid to win support in European Union (EU) member states for the technical pillar of the Fourth Railway Package, the European Agency for Railways conducted a road-show throughout the European Union culminating in a conference in Brussels in June. The agency’s executive director Josef Doppelbauer spoke to David Briginshaw about the rationale for the road-show.

A survey of 351 experienced mid-career professionals at 30 railway companies from around the world found that a vast majority felt as though their career had plateaued. But as Dr Janene Piip, talent and career consultant at SkillSmart, Australia, argues, engaging with this untapped resource of knowledge and experience could deliver the innovation railway companies are looking for.

Despite rail’s overall high energy efficiency, the cost of power supply is still a major concern. Many initiatives are underway to reduce energy consumption, such as reducing vehicle mass and improving the energy efficiency of on-board systems says, Dirk Wimmer, general manager of SMA Railway Technology, Germany.

With recent advances in energy storage technology, urban rail operators are harnessing the ability to reduce traction power consumption. Venky Krishnan director of business development and special projects with Calbetux, United States and vice-president of corporate operations and communications, Kristen Frey, explain how flywheels offer a reliable and durable solution for wayside energy storage.