Railway Wheel Load Balancing and Vehicle Levelling
How to improve derailment safety, reduce gauge infringement risk and extend wheel lives.
Hitachi fleet engineers keep the high speed class 395 fleet in optimum condition through practical application of the best technologies in the UK railway industry. MoreVision is an engineering consultancy with an innovative software platform, ExcelWraps, on which to deliver their expertise. For the past few years we have collaborated to improve vehicle suspension on the high speed class 395 fleet. Blending analytical skills with a practical approach has resulted in a twelve-fold reduction in man hours and has brought a deeper understanding of vehicle suspension systems. Considering the interaction between primary suspension packing, bogie frame stiffness, influence of anti-roll bars, air suspension and levelling system is complicated. It is, however, made easy when delivered in the form of a Wrap providing responsive work instruction to the depot floor. The Wrap always gets it right first time and vastly improves the traditional trial and error approach. All measurements and adjustments are recorded along with digital signatures to a cloud database. Through the cloud all fleet records can be seen from any device at any location at any time and provides an unprecedented level of transparency in the rail industry. The process developed is applicable to any railway vehicle. Call us to discuss how we can bring a tangible cost benefit and improve fleet safety by optimising suspension integrity.