Home: December / January 2012 › Ready for the big freeze

Ready for the big freeze

05/01/2012 | Channel: Infrastructure, Business Improvement, New Products & Services

Network Rail has revealed a range of new measures to be introduced this winter to help Scotland’s railway beat the worst of the weather.

The company is investing heavily in new technology and equipment that will help keep rail lines open and trains on the move.

The initiatives include a new £1 million winter-weather engineering train – which can be used to defrost key junctions during periods of prolonged sub-zero temperatures and to transport engineers and equipment quickly around the rail network when roads are closed.

The company will also be using a helicopter to thermal image the network to identify spots where severe weather could take hold and more off-road vehicles are being made available to the company’s engineers.

This winter will also see the launch of new on-track technologies designed to keep the railway infrastructure, and points in particular, free of ice and snow, including:
  • Trialling a new system of insulating points heater strips which will help them work for longer in the worst of the winter weather
  • Fitting snow displacers at selected points to stop snow building up between the point ends and blocking the points
  • Reducing the ballast depth beneath sets of points to prevent the metal components sticking to the stones below during periods of prolonged sub-zero temperatures
  • Using NASA-grade insulation material currently used on space suits to insulate the inside of points machines to help prevent water building up or freezing inside them
  • Installing current monitors at various sets of points to check changes in power and warn when points are starting to fail
The company’s fleet of ten Scottish-based snow clearing trains will also be in full operation throughout the winter and teams of engineers will work around-the-clock through any severe weather to man key pieces of infrastructure.