Interface - The Journal of Wheel/Rail Interaction

TECHNOLOGY

Implementing Wheel/Rail Measurement and Analysis Technology
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Clearing the Hurdles
Ryan McWilliams, Vice President - Technology & Business Development, at Salient Systems, Inc., looked at the hurdles to implementing wayside measurement and performance-monitoring technology from the suppliers’ perspective.

Wheel Impact Load Detector (WILD) technology, which was developed to identify high-impact wheel loads that were causing track damage, was the first wayside technology adopted as an industry standard, McWilliams said. The first commercial WILD systems were installed in 1985. Significant implementation began in 1993 with the widespread implementation of AEI tags, which are key to monitoring the performance of individual cars. By 1995, there was enough confidence in the systems for the AAR to implement an interchange rule allowing their use. Beginning in 2005, hand-gauge measurements were no longer required for verification.

Today, there are more than 200 WILD systems on six continents; more than 100 of them are in North America. Development, acceptance and implementation was a slow process, however, requiring 20 years for the industry to gain confidence in the system. While the end result is good, McWilliams said, 20-year product development cycles can be prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, he said, suppliers have found ways to develop partnerships with individual railroads and the industry, overall.

The next technological and implementation frontiers include longitudinal rail stress monitoring, which monitors the rail neutral temperature to warn of impeding buckling hazards and to alert railway maintenance departments when to apply a slow order. Suppliers have had to wait for enabling technologies, such as battery optimization, better communications links, and wireless transmission, in order to produce a system with costs that were low enough for railroads to actually implement and use. “We're now able to produce a rail-mounted module that would have been technologically impossible 10 years ago,” McWilliams said.

Identification and measurement of difficult-to-detect subsurface cracks in wheels and axles and other components represents the next frontier. Salient Systems and other suppliers are investigating the use of X-ray, ultrasonic and other technologies to identify an efficient, cost-effective way to detect sub-surface cracks in critical components.

The session moderator, Amtrak’s Mike Franke, pointed out that despite the needs that have been identified and the benefits that have been shown, the railway industry's expenditure for research on new technology continues to be among the lowest of any developed industry.

“We do have an industry research effort through the AAR and FRA that helps supplement what individual railroads contribute to research,” NS’s Bob Blank said. While it’s a struggle to increase research spending, due in part to the capital-intensive nature of the industry, research budgets have been increasing in recent years, he said.

While agreeing with Blank and the other panelists assessments, BNSF’s Lisa Stabler, a self-characterized “outsider” who came from the automotive industry, said that the railroad industry does itself a disservice by thinking that it doesn't move quickly. “I have seen more change in this industry in the past eight years than I saw in 20 years in the automotive industry. It's amazing how quickly this industry can move,” she said. “It's an exciting time — a golden age for detector technology.”

Bob Tuzik is Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Interface Journal

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