New rail technology being developed by leading researchers at Central Queensland University to monitor and assess the risk of train derailments will be on show at the nation’s major annual rail event, AusRail Plus 2005 in Sydney next week.

The low-cost ‘health card’ technology being developed at the Cooperative Research Centre for Railway Engineering and Technologies (Rail CRC) in Rockhampton is expected to save the rail industry more than $6 million annually (estimated by Bovis Lend Lease) through a reduction in train derailments caused by infrastructure failures, and reduced maintenance costs.

Expected for commercialisation by 2007, the technology incorporates small paperback-sized ‘health cards’ which are placed on multiple train wagons as they travel around a network and these simultaneously ‘talk’ to an on-board monitor to detect and report on train and track faults.

According to Rail CRC Project Leader Professor Peter Wolfs who will be taking the technology to AusRail, the on-board monitor would warn drivers of unfavourable train responses, estimate the risk of derailment and alert drivers and maintenance personnel when the risk of derailment increases.

“One of the key benefits of the health card will be to halt instances of partial derailment, a situation where one or a number of wagons on a very long freight train can be derailed and dragged causing substantial damage to tracks, sleepers and wagons before it is noticed,” Professor Wolfs said.

“While the industry has had condition monitoring vehicles for some time which travel around a network at set intervals, this new technology allows every single wagon to cost-effectively monitor the condition of the train and track all the time, giving rail operators a safer, more effective tool to assess the risks associated with wagons and track defaults,” he said.

While the estimation of derailment risk is a vital benefit, maintenance cost savings are another key factor gaining industry interest, with the new technology expected to allow rail operators to move away from fixed timeframe maintenance periods to condition-based maintenance of both track and rollingstock.

“There is strong evidence that the current time-based maintenance of rollingstock is based on worst case scenarios so most wagons are over-serviced.”.

“At the same time maintenance based on track geometry also may misdirect maintenance attention away from areas where it is needed to areas which do not necessarily cause vehicle problems,” he said.

“As an alternative our health cards will allow maintenance to be directed only to the wagons and track areas which require it, saving rail operators substantially on their maintenance budgets.”.