Project Summary
On-street running light-rail systems operate on embedded grooved rail. The cost and carbon footprint associated with renewal of embedded rail is high and causes significant disruption to other street users. The key challenge when it comes to renewal of embedded rail is the lack of standard designs. The aim of the proposed solution is to develop a novel standardised grooved rail section for use across all the UK and Ireland light-rail systems, making procurement easier and more carbon efficient, as well as increasing rail life and reducing costs. Also enabling UK manufacturing, thereby further reducing carbon footprint of rail purchase.
Project Achievements
The characteristics of a grooved rail section were analysed, and, with the support of industry stakeholders, the key functional dimensions were defined. The existing 55G2/55G3 grooved rail sections were found to meet the defined criteria. A system-by-system analysis was then performed to determine the complexity of changes required for each system to transition to the candidate profiles. This allowed us to estimate the likely uptake of the standardised rail section, and analyse the economic viability of UK manufacture, with input from British Steel, the UK’s only rail manufacturer.
Conclusions
The project successfully identified a grooved rail section suitable for adoption on the majority of UK and Ireland light-rail systems with on-street operations. The 55G2/55G3 sections could be relatively easily adopted by all but one existing system, and new systems should also consider adopting this profile. Standardisation of the UK grooved rail profile will increase demand, justifying further production in Europe. In turn, this will reduce delays to rail replacements resulting from delays in the procurement of grooved rail, improving the performance, reliability and safety of UK light rail systems.
Next Steps
A detailed Stakeholder Technical Report will be delivered to all key stakeholders, including existing UK light-rail systems. The report provides evidence and technical details to demonstrate that the 55G2/55G3 grooved rail section is suitable for most of the existing systems and explains what they might need to consider to adopt it. It is hoped that all new systems will adopt these sections, and existing systems will transition to them as part of their existing rail replacement programmes, over a period of a few years. The project concluded that UK manufacturing of grooved rail is currently economically unviable without further incentives. This means that UK systems are likely to continue to import their grooved rail stock from mainland Europe.
