Canadian Pacific Railway’s 100% Effective Lubrication Initiative

Abstract:

North American railroads have for many years applied lubrication to the wheel/rail interface to control wheel and rail wear, reduce lateral forces in curves and produce substantial savings in train energy (fuel) consumption. The traditional method of applying lubricant to the rail is through wayside lubricators. In recent years substantial improvements in wayside equipment technology has improved equipment reliability, reduced maintenance requirements, increased the track miles treated by each lubricator and minimized lubricant waste. While wayside systems can provide excellent gauge face protection to the high rail of curves, results on Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) demonstrate that current wayside systems are unable to reliably provide the recommended fiction levels for the top of the rail. Wayside systems must be supported by other technologies, such as on-board systems, hi-rail applicators or innovative wayside systems to provide effective top of rail friction management. CPR’s experience in developing and implementing ‘best practice friction management guidelines’ are provided in this paper.

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