The Anonymous Widower

Portable Track Geometry Measurement System

This project was one of the winners in the First Of A Kind 2022 competition run by Innovate UK.

In this document, this is said about the project.

Project No: 10037542

Project title: Portable Track Geometry Measurement System
Lead organisation: MONIRAIL LTD.
Project grant: £249,148

Public description: Rail incidents can take many forms and can results in many different types of intervention from
temporary speed restrictions to full track closures. Many incidents either result from or cause track
damage and in order to remove any speed restrictions or track closures engineers need to be
confident that the track is in a safe condition. It is therefore common practice after many incidents
where track damage is suspected or track repairs have been undertaken for Track Recording
Vehicles (TRVs) to be required to run the track before passenger or freight vehicles are allowed to
run the line again. However, the availability of these vehicles can cause significant delays to line
reopening or removal of speed restrictions.

MoniRail has developed an in-service track monitoring system that can be permanently fitted to
passenger vehicles and is currently on trial with Network Rail (NR) in Scotland and also fitted to 2
Eurostar vehicles on HS1. One potential use-case for the permanent system is for speedier
removal of speed restrictions. However, even with the fixed solution delays are likely as track
monitoring systems are only likely to be fitted to 1/3 to 1/2 of all vehicles, approx 1500 of 5100
vehicles.

This project aims to overcome these delays by providing track engineers with the first ever portable
dynamic track geometry measurement system by modifying the permanent solution into a portable
one that can be temporarily fixed to vehicles along with a lineside sensor array that can provide
additional safety critical track information to the engineer. This solution will therefore provide
immediate track information to track engineers such that can make informed decisions about the
safety of the track and to what extent speed restrictions can be lifted or line re-opened.

My Thoughts And Conclusion

I am surprised that this hasn’t been developed before.

It surely must have export potential.

November 19, 2022 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | First Of A Kind 2022, Innovate UK, Measurement