PITTSBURGH — A Wabtec brake technology for transit systems, designed to address wheel slide in low-adhesion situations such as can occur on wet or leaf-covered rails, has received European certification, allowing its use on new equipment as well as retrofitting onto existing mainline trains.
The DistanceMaster Adaptive Wheel Slide Protection technology received certification from international testing, inspection, and certification firm RINA following laboratory tests at Deutsche Bahn Systemtechnik’s lab in Minden, Germany, and operating tests in France on an SNCF Regiolis train conducted with accredited laboratory Eurailtest.
“This certification opens the door to the use of our new generation of high-performance adhesion solutions on new mainline trains, as well as retrofits on existing trains,” Lilian Leroux, president of Wabtec Transit, said in a press release. “It includes the SNCF Regiolis fleet, where DistanceMaster will start contributing to reducing maintenance costs this autumn as the rainy season begins and the leaves begin to fall.”
Wabtec says that in addition to obtaining the certification, the tests showed that the DistanceMaster technology decreased stopping distances and avoided wheel damage even in extremely low adhesion conditions.
Sliding on wet rail is a problem, especially in leaf season. Suburban RR’s have trains out every night to wash the rails and put down a chemical that will offset the oils from crushed leaves every fall.
Trains can miss station platforms, overrun signals, etc. Sliding wheels develop flat spots and wear out the railhead.