Hyrail Vehicles
On-board condition monitoring
Hyrail vehicles offer great flexibility for the inspection of rail tracks. These can move from one track to another and travel to distant places by road offering an excellent solution for limited amount of track testing on track where existing rolling stock is unable to inspect. These solutions are also cost effective consuming less energy and manpower to operate systems especially in cases where infrequent inspection is required. Maximum possible speeds of 90 kmph allows up to 500 kilometers of data inspection per day. The major downside of these vehicles however is the fact that some load dependent measurements may not be accurate and these vehicles take track possession to perform inspections which means that the overall network capacity may get reduced for the passage of normal vehicles.
| Maintenance vehicles installation requirements | |
|---|---|
| Limited space | Hyrail vehicles are large pick-up trucks up to 20 ton vehicles and depending on their size, space may be limited. In the case of pick-up trucks, only the driver and one other person can sit. Depending on the design of the vehicle, the space for equipment and accessories may be very limited. |
| Generator power | Only generator power can be used unless the vehicle is large and can provide power. This limits the range of inspections. |
| Attended operations | All operations have to be attended especially if the equipment has to be prepared in a certain position, calibrated or components moved before inspections can start. |
| Clearance issues | Hyrail vehicles operate both on tracks and road, and therefore equipment clearances and weight must meet road requirements. |
| Weight issues | Hyrail vehicles have limited load carrying capacity and this must be taken into consideration when deciding on how equipment is positioned and to weight balance it. |
| Safety of equipment | These vehicles may be parked in places that are not secure therefore it is important to make sure that the equipment is securely locked on the vehicle. |
| Measurement accuracy | Measurements such as track geometry may not be as accurate with hyrail units as needed and if performed with trains because of limited load exerted on the track. |
TrackVue installation
All TrackVue series equipment is ideally suited for hyrail installations. In particular, convection cooled systems only require a single piece of equipment to be installed making it very easy for installation on any chosen hyrail. The unit can be easily operated in attended mode using a laptop or panel PC. The video below shows TrackVue systems for Hyrails mounted at the back of the vehicle.