Railway Track & Structures - February 2009 - (Page 20)

TTCI R&D immediately behind the TOR friction control applicator car. However, force levels may have returned to more typical levels at the tail end of the train. The drop in lateral curving forces near the end of both trains is similar to that observed for others and is attributed to the use of rear-pusher locomotives. Summarizing curving forces produced by hundreds of trains confirmed a limited reduction of curving forces, at least at the load station site. Data suggested TOR friction control-equipped and nonequipped trains produced about the same average curving forces. Some reasons for this are based on site specific issues such as: • Trains stopped, then restarted three to five miles prior to the load station, wiping friction control material from the wheels • Inoperative or failed TOR friction control application system shutting down near the measurement site • Trains operated on adjacent second main line track • Slow orders, trains stopped over the measurement site due to congestion • Trains rerouted due to area flooding • TOR friction control car MU connections inadvertently disconnected or car switched to non-lead position in the train Other issues that may have caused insufficient TOR friction control material to be applied to and/or reaching the rail include: • Friction control application rates may have been too low • Wind or air turbulence at higher operating speeds preventing proper TOR friction control material transfer to the wheels and rails During the six months of monitoring, no train operating or train braking issues were reported related to low values of TOR friction. Energy summary Onboard train energy data were collected by UP Fuel Conservation Department personnel. Several route segments of 60 miles to 100 miles in length were selected where normal operations allowed near steady-state running. Energy consumed by train (shown as gallons per 1,000 gross ton miles) passage through each of these segments was averaged for many runs. Tables 1 and 2 show summaries for non-equipped and TOR friction control-equipped trains Tables 1 and 2, for loaded trains, also show the TOR friction control-equipped trains required less energy to move, even though TOR friction control-equipped trains were heavier than the non-equipped trains by approximately 1.5 percent. For the route with the moderate curves and low gradient, the reduction in energy to move TOR friction control-equipped loaded trains was about nine percent, but for all segments it was about 1.76 percent. The first segment, containing more severe downgrade gradient for trains starting loaded/eastbound runs, indicated higher fuel consumption for TOR trains. While the TOR systems were most likely not the cause of the increased fuel usage, this does confirm that energy savings are highly route and train operations dependent. More detailed information on curvature, gradient, and train speed effects is needed to allow modeling predictions of energy savings over a specific route. The other three loaded test segments indicated an average savings of 9.93 percent, suggesting a route savings in the range of five percent. Additional analysis is being conducted on predicted versus actual data to confirm these savings. Evaluation of curving forces at a site-specific location suggests 20 Railway Track & Structures February 2009 www.rtands.com http://www.transalert.com http://www.aar.com http://www.transalert.com http://www.rtands.com

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Railway Track & Structures - February 2009

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