971745High Speed Cryogenic Blasting for Rail Cleaning to Alleviate Low AdhesionClosedSmall Business Research InitiativeInnovate UKHigh Speed Cryogenic Blasting for Rail Cleaning to Alleviate Low Adhesion Low adhesion in the wheel/rail interface causes safety concerns if a train is unable to stop as required. Associated delays result in fines and passenger dissatisfaction. Unpredictable braking and traction is the variation in adhesion conditions in the wheel/rail contact. The fluctuations that occur are largely related to the presence of contaminants on the rail head such as water (as dew or precipitation), leaves, oil, metal oxides or wear debris. One way to overcome the problem is to clean the rail head to leave a more consistent surface. Previous work has shown that rail head cleaning using dry-ice blasting provides many benefits over the water jetting currently used. As the dry-ice pellets impact a contaminant layer they cool it causing it to crack and debond. Further bombardment, and the blast as the pellets turn into gas, then acts to remove it. This approach leaves no residual material and will not damage wheels or rails. In Autumn 2019 a road-to-rail mounted system was successfully trialled with Network Rail across five routes. This system can now be rolled out to clean rail where rail head treatment trains (RHTTs) are unable to pass and will be used on the West Highland Line to clean for the whole of Autumn 2020. In this project, with support of stakeholders such as Network Rail, Northern Trains Ltd., Stagecoach Supertram (Sheffield) and Nexus (Tyne and Wear Metro), work will be carried out develop a high speed cryogenic cleaning system that can operate at at least 60mph to match the operating capability of a current RHTT and asses the viability of having cleaning capability on passenger trains. This will involve adapting the technology for trials on the Nexus Rail Head Treatment Train and a Northern Trains Ltd. passenger train. Development work will be carried out using the University of Huddersfield HAROLD full-scle wheel/rail test-rig (which can operate up to 125mph) to find the optimum application parameters for the higher speeds attained by these vehicles over those used in previous testing. As the cryogenic pellets can be generated onboard a train, their use allows a high speed rail head treatment platform to be much smaller than a current RHTT and they will be able to clean for longer distances.