Abstract
Railway track switches, commonly referred to as ‘turnouts’ or ‘points,’ are a necessary element of any rail network. However, they often prove to be performance-limiting elements of networks. A novel concept for rail track switching has been developed as part of a UK research project with substantial industrial input. The concept is currently at the demonstrator phase, with a scale (384 mm) gauge unit operational in a laboratory. Details of the novel arrangement and concept are provided herein. This concept is considered as an advance on the state of the art. This paper also presents the work that took place to develop the concept. Novel contributions include the establishment of a formal set of functional requirements for railway track switching solutions, and a demonstration that the current solutions do not fully meet these requirements. The novel design meets the set of functional requirements for track switching solutions, in addition to offering several features that the current designs are unable to offer, in particular to enable multi-channel actuation and rail locking, and provide a degree of fault tolerance. This paper describes the design and operation of this switching concept, from requirements capture and solution generation through to the construction of the laboratory demonstrator. The novel concept is contrasted with the design and operation of the ‘traditional’ switch design. Conclusions to the work show that the novel concept meets all the functional requirements whilst exceeding the capabilities of the existing designs in most non-functional requirement areas.
Highlights
A novel concept for rail track switching has been developed as part of a UK research project with substantial industrial input
This paper has presented the background and context to railway track switching, including how track switches can limit the performance of rail networks
These limitations come about as track switch designs have evolved over time to fulfil a particular purpose, meaning they may not be optimised to provide the kind of performance a modern railway network requires
Summary
A novel concept for rail track switching has been developed as part of a UK research project with substantial industrial input. The design meets the set of functional requirements for track switching solutions, in addition to enabling multi-channel actuation and rail locking, to provide a degree of fault tolerance. These teams may have a large area to cover and, if several incidents occur at once, response times can be over 1 h To reduce this impact, recent literature shows extensive research has been conducted into condition-based maintenance of existing designs, and Network Rail, the UK infrastructure custodian, is currently rolling out condition monitoring equipment across its active assets. The active element has two functions: to direct vehicles along the correct path; and to confirm the route to the interlocking, or provide information that the switch is unsafe This operation must be performed within a given timeframe. A cross-industry focus group was assembled on three occasions through 2011–2012, to generate candidate
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