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January 2017
For Loram Maintenance of Way Inc.’s Friction Management division, 2016 was a year of continued product innovation, development and process improvements, notes Vennie Dyavanapalli, manager of the friction management product line. In 2015, Loram’s core company strategy of providing “rail life extension” products, and consulting and maintenance services was the main development driver.
Loram now offers a new gauge face lubrication system: GaugeShield. When compared with a traditional gauge face lubrication system, the GaugeShield system offers more pump and motor, delivery, bar and reservoir options, and controls with feedback, the company says.
The company’s YardGlide top-of-rail units also have recently received “a significant redesign,” Dyavanapalli says. The enhanced yard units feature improved pumps, controls, delivery bars and friction modifiers.
The YardGlide improvements are designed to reduce friction modifier waste, decrease the amount of track-mounted components, provide better carrying distance with a year-round friction modifier, and offer a new controls system that communicates easily with the hump yard’s main controls. The YardGlide system also can be used in hump yard and flat switching yard applications.
Loram also continues to develop its friction modifiers. The company now offers two water-based friction modifiers with longer carry distances to accompany its offerings of synthetic-based friction modifiers, Dyavanapalli says.
After researching the possibility of developing a solid lubrication formulation that was both biodegradable and renewable, MPL Innovations Inc. now offers the patent pending Solidstick NatureBlend. The “environmentally conscious” wheel flange lubricant combines biodegradable and renewable polymers with a vegetable oil and traditional extreme pressure additives, says MPL Innovations President Mike Mitrovich.
NatureBlend maintains all of the benefits of MPL’s Solidstick wheel flange lubricant, which include energy savings through the reduction of friction and lateral forces, and increased wheel life through reduced flange wear.
Testing at the Transportation Technology Center Inc. (TTCI) has been conducted on the wheel-rail mechanism track and the transit track to demonstrate the product’s benefits for both curve and tangent rail. TTCI results indicated that under heavy curving conditions, the NatureBlend material reduced energy consumption by 5 percent to 7 percent; and under mostly tangent rail, it was able to reduce energy consumption by 2 percent to 4.5 percent, Mitrovich says.
“Throughout testing, the material has demonstrated its ability to reduce the gauge face coefficient of friction indicating the sustained transfer of lubrication from wheel to rail,” he adds.
In recent testing completed by the National Research Council Canada, NatureBlend achieved an optimal coefficient of friction that complies with UNI 16028, the European standard for lubricants for train born applications.
NatureBlend currently is in use systemwide at several Class Is and numerous short lines, Mitrovich says.
With customer input, Whitmore Rail continues to create what the company terms “advanced designs” for its application equipment and track-mounted components, including LubriCurve®, a mechanical trackside applicator, and AccuTrack®, an electric trackside applicator.
AccuTrack incorporates a robust housing with a control system featuring directional pump output settings with a locomotive wheel skip feature, self-diagnostics for troubleshooting, a prime button for continuous pumping, motor braking for precise grease output and a communications port for remote monitoring requirements. Compatible with Elecsys RFM-100 remote monitoring, the system is designed to monitor battery and solar panel voltage, log axle count and product dispensed in two directions.
Whitmore Rail also offers the PolyTOR™ Bar, an easy-to-maintain, top-of-rail bar that consists of a 36-inch-long, replaceable polyurethane bar insert with reinforced port molded in the center. Impervious to UV, oil and water, the polyurethane compound can endure false flange contact, the company says. PolyTOR’s fiberglass-reinforced bulb seal is designed to keep top-of-rail product in the contact patch. For precise grease output, Whitmore Rail offers gauge face wiping bars available in 16-, 32- and 60-inch sizes, with 16- and 32-port configurations, with or without a guide trough.
The company also offers a full-service equipment and lubrication management program.
SKF recently added an array of new and upgraded Lincoln-branded products to its freight line and metro line rail lubrication portfolio. An expanded rail lubrication portfolio enables customers to configure their system based on specific needs, the company says.
As part of these new offerings, SKF/Lincoln developed a new wheel sensor mount using its stud-shim design to enable quicker mounting. The enhanced stud clamp and slotted, height-adjusting shims are designed to reduce the amount of time on the track. One common nut size eliminates the need to switch sockets during time-critical track maintenance removal and re-install activities; the mount also fits a wide range of rails, giving customers a single mount for most rail sizes, the company says.
In addition, SKF/Lincoln introduced a new brushless gauge-face applicator that provides “easy cleaning of the trough and does not require any maintenance for brush replacement,” the company says.
The applicator builds upon the SKF/Lincoln “brush-bar” applicator, providing customers with another option for applying greases to the gauge face.
SKF/Lincoln also has expanded its solar panel options with the addition of a robust, simplified solar panel mount for its lubricators. Easy to install, the solar panel kit features a 190-watt panel mounted on high-strength square tubes that are secured with theft-resistant hardware.
It’s long been demonstrated that an effective friction management program can drive considerable savings — rail and wheel wear reduction, as well as fuel consumption reduction — at a “value compelling multiple of the associated cost,” officials at L.B. Foster Co. say. But for this to occur, the friction management equipment must operate well above uptime levels of 40 percent to 50 percent that typically are seen in practice, company officials say.
There’s an opportunity, then. And one way L.B. Foster is attempting to address it is by taking what company officials term a “very non-traditional approach to typical service offerings” by ensuring equipment uptime of 85 percent and above in order to maximize customer savings.
“We take on the risk in guaranteeing uptime,” says L.B. Foster Rail Technologies General Manager Steve Fletcher. The “pay for performance” service model sharpens the focus on changes to L.B. Foster friction management products and services, which can improve uptime performance, the company says.
Examples include new friction modifier products that require lower application rates to extend lubricator filling intervals (SYNCURVE[TM]), new PROTECTOR® IV components with lower power consumption to extend battery life — which are critical for solar powered units placed in low sunlight areas — and improved data analytics/remote performance monitoring. “By taking a holistic approach to managing unit uptime, we believe we will be able to drive value for our customers,” says Fletcher.
Klüber Lubrication recently introduced Klübersynth GE 4 80 W 140, a fully synthetic high-performance gear oil based on polyalphaolefin (PAO) that is designed to provide high stability and protection even under shock loads, the company says.
The gear oil offers high resistance to scuffing and micropitting, as well as protection against wear on gear teeth and rolling bearings. The shear stability prevents the lubricant film from collapsing, which is essential to protect both teeth and rolling bearings. The low foaming tendency and anti-corrosive properties of the product enable problem-free gear operation, the company says. The gear oil offers a longer service life than conventional mineral oils due to its aging and oxidation resistance. As a result, service intervals are extended and maintenance costs are reduced, the company says.
High-performance gear oils from Klüber Lubrication can be used in spur, bevel and hypoid gears, particularly if API GL4 or API GL5 is required. Klübersynth GE 4 75 W 90 is approved by several manufacturers, including IG Watteeuw, Voith Turbo, Siemens-Flender, Stadler Rail, Bombardier and CAF, and German railway operator Deutsche Bahn.
Railmark Track Works Inc., a Railmark company, offers an array of biobased switch lubricants, top-of-rail lubricants and hydraulic oils formulated to provide “superior lubricity resulting in less friction,” according to the company.
Manufactured in the United States from renewable crop-based based oils and a lithium-based thickener, the biobased products meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s “Environmental Preferable Purchasing” criteria, the company says. The lubricants also have a viscosity index that’s two times higher than petroleum-based oils, providing more stable viscosity at different temperatures and a wider range of operation, according to Railmark.
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