Abstract: Singapore MRT Ltd (SMRT) is a mass transit railway system which operates in the South East Asian region. It provides an efficient and reliable railway system to its daily patronage of around 1.1 million users on its 89km long urban network. Its North-South and East-West Urban Lines with a spur line to the Changi airport are part of an integrated public transport system. Although SMRT has been operating since 1987, the 16 km long Woodlands line was opened only in February 1996, and the 4km spur line to Changi Airport was opened in January 2001. SMRT faced several rail defect issues including rail surface cracking and the development of corrugations in its urban railway network. Following a technology scan SMRT identified and sought assistance from the Institute of Railway Technology to minimise and/or eliminate the rail deterioration. The Institute of Railway Technology (IRT) conducted a rail defect study and recommended refined wheel/rail interface characteristics and customized profiles to suit the operating conditions in Singapore. Recently completed evaluation trials which compared the performances of the modified rail profiles with the standard UIC60 rail profiles on test curves at Singapore MRT have shown significant improvements in the performance of the rails and an encouraging reduction in the rail deterioration rates. This paper describes the above case study in detail and discusses some factors that were critical to achieve successfully the improved wheel-rail interface conditions at Singapore MRT.
Publication Year: 2004
Publication Date: 2004-01-01
Language: en
Type: article
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