Northern is trialling new technology to blast leaves from train tracks this autumn. The technology, called Water-Trak, is attached to the undercarriage of passenger trains and sprays a small amount of water onto the track when a slippery rail is detected. This creates rainy-day conditions on the rail surface, which cleans the rail and makes the conditions better for braking.
Fallen leaves can cause significant disruption to the rail network, as they stick to damp rails and are compressed into a smooth, slippery layer. This can reduce trains' grip and cause delays to services.
At the moment, railway lines are cleaned using dedicated railhead treatment trains, also known as RHTTs. However, there are only a limited number of these trains available and they are expensive to run. This means that some rural and branch lines are often left untreated.
Water-Trak can be fitted to existing passenger services, which means that it can be used to clean a wider range of lines.
Five Northern trains fitted with Water-Trak are operating this autumn on routes between Liverpool, Wigan and Manchester as well as between Leeds, Harrogate and York. The trials are being run thanks to funding from Network Rail's Performance Innovation Fund.
Rob Cummings, seasonal performance improvement manager at Northern, said: "We're pleased to be working with Water-Trak to try and provide a better, more reliable service in tricky autumn conditions. This is the next stage of this trial that we hope will take us closer to our goal."
By next autumn a further 11 trains will have the Water-Trak system fitted.
John Cooke, co-founder at Water-Trak, said: "Slippery rails are a massive problem for the rail industry, and we hope to play a big part in resolving this issue. We're hoping that by working with Northern we can make autumn disruption a thing of the past."
Northern has been trialling technology across its infrastructure over recent months. This has included ‘data hoovers’ which it is hoped will allow its fleet to become ‘intelligent trains’’ feeding data back to Network Rail’s operating centres using LIDAR cameras and thermal imaging software.
Photo Credit: Northern
