Maintenance strategy ensures sustainability

12th April 2013

  

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The new rail-track infrastructure investments projects being undertaken by South Africa’s major rail operators – State-owned utilities Transnet and the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) – calls for a suitable maintenance strat- egy to ensure the long-term sustainability of the assets and the safety of commuters and freight at the lowest possible life-cycle cost, notes mechanised railway track maintenance machinery supplier Plasser South Africa.

Before undertaking rail-track infrastructure investments, Plasser South Africa insists that railway operators and the Railway Safety Regul-ator (RSR) address several requirements.

Rail operators would need to deal with the availability of the necessary engineering and technical resources to effectively manage additional infrastructure or existing infrastructure with greater maintenance demands; the need for long- and short-term strategies to ensure the sustainability of the assets, and the safety of passengers and stakeholders; as well as the implementation of effective safety standards, technology and systems to measure, monitor and evaluate infrastructure conditions against safety standards so that timeous corrective action can be taken.

Once installed, a track’s condition will start deteriorating as soon as traffic passes over the line, owing to dynamic loading and wear of individual track components, says Plasser South Africa, noting that the deterioration of one track component which can accelerate the deterioration of other track components.

To counteract and extend the life of the track, while also reducing the life-cycle cost, track deterioration could be slowed down through planned maintenance interventions.

“Knowing when maintenance intervention is required implies that the track condition must be monitored and measured, and the data analysed to produce track condition information. “There are several parameters and components that must be measured, of which the track geometry is the most critical,” explains Plasser South Africa.

It points out that a high-speed infrastructure-measuring and recording car, the IM2000, is the only feasible way to carry out these measurements. To produce critical track-condition assessments and management information, the IM2000, supplied by Plasser South Africa, is used countrywide by Transnet and Prasa.

“Once the deterioration approaches the threshold for minimum allowable track condi- tion – or until the period between required maintenance interventions becomes uneconomically short, major track renewal such as ballast cleaning; formation rehabilitation; replacement of sleepers, rails, fastenings, ballast or any combination of these com-ponents, will be required,” Plasser South Africa says.

Meanwhile, the design and quality of construction materials and processes will also have far-reaching consequences for expenditure later in the life of the track structure.

“The use of lower-standard track components or lower standards of formation or drainage construction, may save money in construc- tion costs, but the extra track maintenance cost, resultant train-delay times and reduction in the track life that result from the lower standard of work will far exceed the perceived savings,” Plasser South Africanotes.

“The higher the initial quality of the track, the greater the quality reserve, the longer the track life and the lower the track life-cycle cost will be,” it adds.

Unlike the practice adopted by countries with high-quality railways, minimum safety standards have not been legislated in South Africa.

The result is that safety becomes subjective and maintenance managers have difficulty in justifying when drastic steps are required to ensure the safe passage of trains.

Track condition standards, as developed by Transnet and Prasa, provide some guidelines but the parameters can be adjusted at the discretion of the engineer.

Further, the weighted deterioration of the track requires consideration and should be part of the maintenance and track condition management process.

Every maintenance input should aim to reduce the track condition deterioration rate. Due consideration should, therefore, be given to finding the appropriate machine type, supplier and contract for the task at hand.

Edited by Tracy Hancock
Creamer Media Contributing Editor

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