Railway Brake System in Nordic Countried Application in Sweden's Challenges and Constrains

Abstract

Manufacturing train fleets for countries that have extreme weather/climatic condition is always a specific challenge, moreover when the concerned country has a huge difference itself inside. Even under such specific constraints and conditions, the train and in particular the brake system must remain reliable and available. Some simple examples: How can we (car builders) make sure that the train will still brake if ice or snow is built up on brake acting component? Or if the exhaust of brake pipe (emergency brake) is clogged by ice? If a train has failure between 2 far station (>250 km), it shall be able to run to reach the next (far) station. The presentation aims to: Present the fleet running locations, numbers and route distances, Present the requirements depending on the location (south vs north vs center Sweden), weather conditions (snowy, extremely cold)…, Overview of the specific solutions and features present to fit to the constrains: redundant AGTU for specific region, specific retardation test from brake and signaling system. We will present the real effect by examples of the snowy, extremely cold, humid climatic conditions: Pictures of a train with bogie completely hidden behind snow, Video of iced caliper moving by braking the ice (test bench) This will be just quick go through, since we plan a dedicated presentation for the winterization separately for the session in 2020. We will also present the specific feature of the brake and signaling system for Sweden: Retardation test. What is the aim? What is the historical development of it? How does it work? What are the attention compared to a performance test? What are the special solutions used for adapting the retardation test from UIC to a direct brake system?