Railway Interchange 2017 Buzz

Development and Validation of Inspection Gauges for Wheel Climb Safety at Switch Points (Room Sagamore 7)

19 Sep 17
11:00 AM - 11:30 AM

Tracks: AREMA Full Schedule, AREMA Technical Sessions- Maintenance

Speaker(s): Brad Kerchof, Director Research and Tests, Norfolk Southern Corporation; Allan Zarembski, Professor, University of Delaware

Inspection of the turnout and in particular the switch point area of the turnout has not kept up with advances in track inspection technologies for the track structure in general. This is in spite of the fact that turnouts represent the third largest area of track caused derailments, with about half of these in the switch point area. This paper presents the results of a two phase, 3 year program aimed at developing, validating and implementing practical and easily deployable measurement gauges for track inspectors to determine whether switch condition has degraded to the point that it could cause a derailment. This paper presents the development, field assessment and validation of four switch point inspection gauges for prevention of wheel climb derailments. The Four gauges are listed as follows: 1- Chipped point gauge. 2- AAR 1B wheel contact gauge. 3- Severely worn wheel profile gauge. 4- Gage-face wear angle gauge. Each of these gauges addresses a particular risk conditions that might lead to wheel climb at the switch point area of the turnout. This paper includes taking these gauges into an active field environment on five US railroads with track inspectors on these railroads using these gauges as part of their inspection activity to assess their practical usability and their value in identifying marginal or potentially dangerous switch points. The results of this assessment to include correlation of gauges with inspector evaluations and determination of the value of these gauges will be presented. Based on these field assessments, analyses, and railroad feedback it was determined that all four gauges were of value and should be recommended to the industry. In fact several of the evaluator railroads are already looking at introducing these gauges into their inspection process.