The annual disruption to train journeys during autumn caused by leaves on the line could soon be a thing of the past.
Fallen leaves cause significant disruption to the network as they stick to damp rails. Passing trains compress them into a smooth, slippery layer, reducing the grip on the rails of trains’ wheels.
At the moment, railhead treatment trains are used to clean railway lines, but there are only a limited number of these available, so they can’t treat the whole of the network. They are also expensive to run, so they are mainly used to clean busy main lines, which means some lines are untreated.
During November, Northern Trains and its rail industry partners demonstrated two new leaf-busting technologies at Northern’s Allerton depot. The new treatment technologies are currently being trialled thanks to funding from Network Rail’s Performance Innovation Fund. They are attached to passenger trains, and could save the rail industry millions of pounds every year.
One of the technologies is named Water-Trak. The team behind the technology discovered that rails covered in leaves only become slippery if they are damp, but trains still stop safely in heavy rain. Water-Trak simulates rainy-day conditions by spraying a small amount of water onto the track when a slippery rail is detected. Two Northern trains fitted with Water-Trak have been successfully operating in passenger service since late October.
The second technology being trialled is a cryogenic rail head treatment developed by a team of researchers led by Professor Roger Lewis from the University of Sheffield. This uses dry ice pellets in a stream of high-pressure air that freezes the leaves, then as the pellets turn back to gas they are blasted away from the rails. The research team is now set to run further trials with Northern throughout this autumn and winter to test the cleaning system in real-life conditions on passenger trains.
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