Over the past 15 years, the number of
rail failures on the French network each
year has fallen from 1,000 to less than
600. “The improvement is due to 20-odd
years of research that has helped us
understand a lot about why failures
occur,” says Louis Girardi of the Infrastructure
Dept. This research has resulted
in improvements in the material as well
as more aggressive preventive maintenance.
Further progress has become difficult,
however, because this asset is not
evolving as rapidly as vehicles, which
are getting faster and heavier. A better
understanding of the stresses on rails is
thus needed to adjust the maintenance
and renewal strategy.
Current research involves modelling and
full-scale trials. In the Deufrako programme,
where new quantitative methods
for predicting rail performance are
being developed, France is working on
the modelling and Germany on the physical
trials. The first results should be
out this year. Meanwhile, SNCF is pursuing
its own independent research, too.
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