Evaluation of the impact on track of different locomotive running gear architectures

Abstract

The paper compares two different locomotive architectures in order to evaluate their performances in terms of impact on the track. The reference locomotive is the three-axle bogie locomotive GT46ACe, used in the Australian and North American network, while the second one is a new concept locomotive with BoBoBo wheel arrangement and derived by an existing Italian locomotive, namely E.646. In order to make the comparison possible, the existing Italian locomotive has an increased axle-load and adapted suspensions in order to make its traction performances comparable with the ones of the reference locomotive. The two vehicles have been tested on different tracks and considering different traction levels. The preliminary results show that the BoBoBo wheel arrangement could introduce several benefits with respect to the CoCo one in terms of track load reduction, wear and rolling contact fatigue.