The National Rail Awards 2009

   
   
   

The tenth anniversary for the railway 'Oscars' - the industry's biggest and most widely-respected awards scheme.

Picture from left to right:
John Humphries - Host, Guest Presenter
Brian Whitney - Principal Rail Management Engineer
John Coakes - Senior Maintenance Support Engineer [Welding] Glasgow
Archie Crawford - Senior Track Engineer (NDT)
Richard Lungmuss - Route Director - London North East
Malcolm Brown - Chief Executive of Angel Trains - (National Rail Awards Sponsors)

Innovation of the year

Open to companies and individuals alike. Entries could focus on customer service, a new product, operations initiatives, maintenance and construction innovations, freight or passenger services. The successful entry might be a single, isolated idea or specific development which had a massive effect, or a widescale high-impact project. This class is open to any new idea, large or small, within the railway industry.

2009 Winners - Network Rail Welding Team - Rail Defect Head Repair Weld

Originally, Thermit Welding (GB) Ltd commenced the development of an aluminothermic head repair weld in liaison with BR Research and the Director of Civil Engineering. Development was suspended partly as a result of problems with weld integrity but principally because of strategic constraints of requiring the repair to be made between traffic. As all aluminothermic welding is now undertaken under a full track possession, interest in the process was renewed because of the perceived productivity and reliability benefits offered by the process over MMA repair or the removal of short lengths of rail containing defects and replacement with welded in closure rails.

The process was developed with particular attention paid to minimizing costs and wherever possible aligning the method with equipment and welding practice used for the conventional SkV-E welding process commonly used as standard in the UK.

NR required a fast, reliable repair method leaving a sound repair with similar hardness and wear properties to the parent rail. The finished repair also had to be fully testable using conventional pedestrian and train-based ultrasonic procedures.

By the successful adoption of these objectives, NR and TWGB has developed the HRW to incorporate:

  • Rapid defect removal by oxy-fuel gas cutting and grinding
  • Conventional low pressure preheating - standard SkV-E parameters
  • Single Use Crucibles
  • Standard NR approved Thermit portions
  • Normal Thermit welding, trimming and profile grinding practice
  • Adoption of as much standard welding equipment as possible

The process has been designed as a quick, cost effective alternative to conventional MMA repairs, with multiple repairs possible within a normal welding shift.

The process also enables significant surface defects to be removed without the need for the installation of a short closure rail requiring two standard aluminothermic welds and re-stressing to achieve the required stress free temperature.

Further benefits are obtained with improved alignment as conventional rail welds can lead to minor misalignments or a mismatch of head or sidewear which needs to be catered for during the installation of a closure rail.