Rail skates for fixing rolling stock on the station tracks. Ground tests

Abstract

Currently manual brake shoes on Russian railways are used to solve two main tasks: to adjust uncoupling speed at humps (hump shoes), and to fix the rolling stock on the railway tracks. Peculiarities of their work on the station tracks were analyzed. Article proves that the working conditions of the hump shoes and rail skates are significantly different and the need for specialized brake shoes, separately for brake cut of cars and fixing rolling stocks, is justified. It is shown that at the present time, under certain conditions the wheels can roll over the brake shoes, so that the complete elimination of the derailment probability of wheelsets or unauthorized motion of trains cannot be guaranteed. Together with the Central Directorate of traffic management of the JSC “Russian Railways” in 2015 for the first time the technical requirements were developed for rail skate for fixing rolling stocks on station tracks and a new design of rail skates was made. Weight of the prototype samples of new rail skates is almost 2 times less than the hump shoe, thus almost completely excludes the possibility of rolling wheels over rail skates, spontaneous run of trains, and thus increased traffic safety, damage to the shoe handle eliminated as well as flattening or cracking of the shoe front end. The main results of tests of prototype samples at the Test Loop of JSC “VNIIZhT” at the st. Shcherbinka allowed making beneficial changes in the design of the rail skates of mounting series.

Keywords

• rail skates
• operation conditions when fixing rolling stock
• features calculations
• ground tests
• technical requirements
• new design