How our research is helping freight achieve its potential

When thinking about the most interesting topics in rail research many people may not automatically think about freight. However, there are considerable and interesting freight questions to address. Just think about the technical implications of the longest freight trains being 775m long, with 52 wagons, and you start to get a sense of the size of the challenges. Add to that the fact that one in four of the shipping containers that arrive at our ports is moved by rail freight, and you start to understand its importance to.

If freight is to deliver on its full potential for the UK economy, research to improve its performance is essential. It’s therefore not surprising that RSSB sees freight research as important.

One project is about axle weights for freight. To maintain safety and efficiency, there are limits how heavy a load can be put on vehicle or wagon axles. While this applies to passenger trains too, it is particularly important for freight where the goods transported can be very heavy. The freight sector is also very keen to expand, and one way it could do this is by taking heavier loads.

Network Rail has oversight of what the maximum axle load is when using its infrastructure. Using existing technical advice, Network Rail is not allowing the heavier loads of 25.4 tonnes per axle onto the network. There is pressure from freight operators to allow this, but it is not permitted by current technical advice.

This is where RSSB’s research with Southampton University comes in. If a model were developed to identify the weight of the load that each section of track could carry, this could be the basis of a useful route-finding tool. Freight operators would be able to find out if a proposed cargo of a particular axle weight could travel on a particular route or not. This would improve their ability to respond to new business enquiries and help everyone in rail make the most efficient use of the track. Consequently, the research proposed by RSSB and Southampton University is for a ‘Heavy Axle Weight Interaction Model’ so that freight operators can understand route availability for their vehicles and wagons. Although this project is at very early stages it is clearly asking a very important question for freight. It will be interesting to see how this project progresses.

Another research project is also looking at axles, but from a different perspective. This research question is about detecting faults in axles and when and how this can be done. This is also an important question because it is easier to notice the possible indicator of a fault when the freight train is in service, but a lot more difficult when the journey ends. Drivers of all sorts of vehicles can sympathise with this problem. This research project is investigating the ability of Remote Condition Monitoring and Dynamic Frequency Analysis to detect axle bearing faults. It would be particularly useful if this analytical approach could detect such faults before the axles become hot, but this needs to be tested first.

Moving away from axles to the coupling between wagons, another research project is exploring digital automatic coupling (DAC). There can be a tendency to assume that all new digital technologies should be adopted. This research project is taking a slightly more critical stance even though the EU will probably adopt DAC as a mandatory technology. This RSSB project is investigating how DAC performs technically, what its use would mean for operations, and the consequences of adopting it or not adopting it.

Explaining these research projects even briefly shows how important research is to freight, not just to RSSB but the whole industry. Whatever the eventual findings of these research projects are, freight will be all the better for it.