Railway Maintenance

There are mainly two aspects of railway line maintenance and railway building maintenance. Railway line maintenance is the repair and maintenance of roadbeds and tracks; railway building maintenance is the maintenance and maintenance of railway bridges, tunnels and buildings.

Railway lines and buildings generally account for about 60% of the value of fixed assets of railway transportation, and are indispensable technical equipment for railway transportation. In order to ensure the safe operation of the train at the specified speed, all equipment should always be kept in good condition. However, in use, various equipment often undergoes permanent deformation, aging and damage due to the influence of train load and natural environment, or deformation and damage due to the increase of transportation conditions (transportation volume, axle load, speed), or due to The quality of the newly built railway is defective and various diseases have been exposed one after another after opening to traffic, and maintenance must be carried out.

The main tasks of railway maintenance are:

(1) Prevent abnormal permanent deformation and various diseases of the equipment, delay the aging of various parts of the equipment, prevent abnormal wear and tear, and prolong the service life;

(2) Eliminate permanent deformation and various diseases beyond the limit, and keep the equipment in good condition;

(3) Carry out partial or complete periodical repair, reinforcement or renewal of lines and buildings, and carry out reconstruction and transformation according to transportation development or other objective needs.

Railway maintenance generally implements the principle of planning and prevention, and divides the maintenance work into three repair processes: overhaul, medium repair and maintenance. Each repair program has a certain scope of work, content, technical conditions and inspection and acceptance standards. In order to ensure traffic safety, the railway has also formulated a strict monitoring, patrol and inspection system for equipment. At present, the means of maintenance operations have been gradually developed from manual operation to mechanization, from single operation machinery to multi-functional comprehensive operation machinery, and from manual operation to semi-automatic or automatic control. In terms of equipment testing, it has also developed from the use of simple hand tools to the use of mechanical and electronic equipment, such as the use of ultrasonic or electromagnetic rail flaw detectors, rail flaw detection vehicles, track inspection vehicles, etc. for railway equipment testing.

With the increase of railway speed and train density, in addition to actively improving and strengthening maintenance work, railways in various countries are committed to strengthening the structure of tracks and buildings, such as using heavy steel rails, building seamless lines, and laying high-strength rails. Prestressed concrete sleepers, wide sleepers, construction of integral ballast bed and asphalt ballast bed, etc.