Why RSSB’s research programme is uniquely placed to deliver safety and efficiency benefits
Our research programme is unique in industry, underpinning our critical role in enabling a safer and more efficient railway. The programme includes research that considers both technical and operational challenges, and our unique expertise in whole-system risk approach and standardisation ensure we deliver sound findings industry can rely upon.
The research programme is designed to focus on challenges that fall between different parts of the railway, where a single organisation cannot tackle the problem on their own. A classic example of this is at the wheel-rail interface, an area in which our research has delivered a wide range of new solutions and knowledge.
Optimising the way train wheels interact with the railhead, such as managing adhesion, or the amount of ‘grip’, is a longstanding and widely recognised issue for the railway. What initially seems a simple interface is, in reality, a complex environment affected by many factors and leading, in autumn, to the infamous ’leaves-on-the-line’ problem. The understanding of the chemistry involved as decaying leaf-matter builds up is still partial, but the resulting impact on adhesion is very well known. This leads to delayed services, increased component wear, and increase safety risk from not being able to stop trains reliably. The research we have led to address the low adhesion challenge provides a great way to illustrate the type of research we do and the benefits we deliver.
Making the most of today’s railway
A significant part of our research portfolio focuses on making the most of existing assets, by providing new evidence to challenge and optimise current ways of doings things. This is essential in complex and safety-critical systems like rail, where an array of different stakeholders have responsibility for components and subsystems that interact with each other. For example, in the context of low adhesion, trailing sanders, the second sander on long formation trains, were not used some years ago because of concerns around the effect on train detection, a key aspect of the signalling system. Our research showed that a better balance of risk was achieved by allowing already fitted sanders to discharge sand. This change required no capital investment and so implementation was easy and rapid to achieve.
Enabling whole-system improvements
Another part of the research portfolio focusses on improving assets and capabilities by developing and testing better solutions that cut across organisational boundaries and which the market is unable to pursue independently. This can be exemplified by our work on double variable rate sanders. We showed that by adding an additional sander on shorter train formations, and linking the amount of sand discharged to speed, trains could predictably brake even in the lowest of adhesion conditions improving safety and avoiding delay in the autumn season. This solution was something no single entity in industry was able, or incentivised, to pursue in isolation, and it is great to see double variable rate sanders starting to be installed.
Unlocking fundamental change
Finally, achieving a step-change in rail’s value proposition requires more speculative, exploratory research that our programme is well placed to deliver. This is because our DfT research grant allows us to consider opportunities that have a longer-term return. Our in-house expertise in technical and risk modelling expertise, and our long-standing relationships with academic institutions and important players in the international rail research arena, also make us uniquely placed to pursue such opportunities. For example, in the adhesion space, a small horizon-scanning piece of work initiated by RSSB triggered what has become the Watertrack solution, where a small amount of water is dispensed on to the rails in front of a train in low adhesion conditions. It is now developed and funded outside our research programme. A current early feasibility study we are conducting is looking into how enzymes could help break down and prevent build-up of mulch on the railhead, which would really benefit industry and has never been looked at before.
Thanks to this mix of research aiming at both low hanging fruits, by making best use of existing assets and capabilities, and long-term opportunities, by enabling pioneering studies, the research programme delivers benefits today and works for the benefits of tomorrow.
