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1. Introduction

The New South Wales Government Railways have owned and operated a number of loco hauled Track Evaluation and Inspection Cars continuously since 1926. The current cars are the third in the series. This paper briefly describes the history of the cars and includes a more detailed description of the current cars and the measuring systems that have recently been fitted to them. The cars have all been given the coding AK in accordance with the system set up for passenger carriages by the New South Government railways since its origin (with the first car having the number 1). The two letter coding for these towed vehicles was derived from A for a “Special Car usually with Sleeping Accommodation” and later AK for “Track Inspection Cars”. Self propelled Track Recording Cars (such as the superseded Plasser EM120) have always been coded RVX1, RVX2 etc. Since the commencement of the running of the AK cars and with the advent and development of a wider range of measuring systems, the emphasis has changed in recent times from track inspection to track evaluation. During 2001 the current cars were fitted with a number of systems including state of the art track geometry measuring equipment. This development heralded the beginning of a new era for track recording in Australia.

2. History of the AK Cars

Car number 417 was the first of the AK cars commenced operation as AK 417 in 1926. It was originally built in 1890 as a First Class side door compartment passenger car, it was timber bodied and fitted with elaborate features such as inlaid metal ceilings. In 1926 it was modified to form the Chief Civil Engineer’s Track Inspection Car. The modifications included fitting it with a Hallade Recorder and making it self contained. The car was generally towed at the rear of a passenger train. It was withdrawn from service as the Track Inspection Car in 1966 after suffering a fire in one end. It still exists in a dilapidated condition in the Thirlmere Rail Transport Museum. The second car to be used as a track inspection car was car number 812 after it was converted in 1966. It had been originally built in 1926 as a First Class saloon car (sit up cubicles with a side corridor) and coded MBX. The car was wooden bodied with a steel riveted frame. It was recoded to MBE in 1939 following the fitting of electrical heating and then to AK 812 when it became the Chief Civil Engineer’s Track Inspection Car. The modifications included making it self contained with three bedrooms, a dining area, separate kitchen, shower and toilet. An observation area with sufficient room for up to seven people was constructed at one end of the car. The Hallade recorder was transferred from AK 417. In 1979 it was fitted with an Electrologic Inertial Ride Quality Measuring system and the Hallade Recorder was removed. AK 812 continued to run until 1995 when it was replaced by the current set of cars. It also was generally towed behind passenger trains up until approximately 1990 from when it ran with its own locomotive. The car is now a heritage item at Eveleigh Workshops. The third consist and current cars to be known as AK cars are car numbers 2382, 2383 and 2384. These three stainless steel cars were built in 1970 as FAM sleeping cars for the Brisbane Limited by Commonwealth Engineering at Granville, NSW, under licence from the Budd Company, Philadelphia, USA. The cars were identical (except for side skirts) to those supplied by Commonwealth Engineering to the Commonwealth Railways for the Indian Pacific service. The cars are 24 metres long and weigh 48 tonnes (12 tonne axle loads). They are rated for 115 km/h running.

AK 2382, 2384 and 2383

Two factors led to the replacement of AK 812. Firstly, there had been an amalgamation of the separate civil, mechanical and electrical engineering sections into one engineering division (as was the trend at the time). This led to the proposal for a single multi-disciniplary testing vehicle which could provide for a range of testing / inspection needs. Secondly, the introduction of new XPT trains (new rollingstock providing high speed country and inter-Capital services), displaced the relatively modern stainless steel sleeper FAM carriages from the Brisbane Limited with the result that the sleeping cars became surplus to the NSW Government Railway’s requirements. Two cars (2382 and 2383) were obtained in 1994 by the Engineering Division and extensively modified to provide a testing platform for vehicle and electrical testing as well as fulfilling the tasks as Track Evaluation and Inspection Cars. They were recoded to AK 2382 and AK 2383. The modifications to the two vehicles were carried out by the NSW Government Railway’s workshops at Bathurst and included: i.	Construction of a Computer Room ii. Installation of a 100KVA generating set to provide electrical power iii. Construction of observation areas from each end of the car including monitors to view system outputs iv. Construction of cable ducting and a conditioned electrical supply throughout the train v.	Construction of a kitchen and eating area vi. Installation of a Pacific Real Time Inertial Ride Measuring system

One of the observation ends was set up to also provide meeting/conference amenities, mainly for management to have available a suitable on board, multipurpose facility which could be used in conjunction with track inspections. Three bedrooms were left intact. After a period of testing, the new AK Cars replaced AK 812 which was then withdrawn from service in 1995. In 1996 a third carriage (AK 2384) was added to provide additional accommodation as the three bedrooms soon proved inadequate. The year 2000 saw a very significant step for the AK cars. Two factors combined to provide justification to broaden the range of measuring systems fitted to the cars. Firstly, the RVX4 Track Recording Car (a Plasser EM120) was 16 years old and in need of upgrading or replacement. Secondly, Rail Services Australia (RSA - the maintenance arm of the NSW Government Railways) had in 1998 won a five year Contract with the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC) for Track and Rail Condition Monitoring. This Contract required RSA during the course of the Contract to introduce new technology to replace the equipment owned by ARTC but operated and maintained by RSA for the first two years of the Contract. This resulted in a quantum change to the nature of the AK cars with a much greater emphasis on the track evaluation aspects. This is in keeping with the current trend with the Australian States leasing track to organisations such as ARTC with the coincident requirement for regular monitoring and evaluation of the asset condition. During 2000 the following measuring systems were fitted to the cars: i.	A Laserail non contact inertial track geometry measuring system (ImageMap/Pacific Real Time) ii. Rail cross profile measuring system (ImageMap/Pacific real Time) iii. Rail corrugation system (Pacific Real Time) iv. Ride measuring system (Pacific Real Time) v.	Overhead catenary wire measuring system (Pacific Real Time) vi. Video recording system (Pacific Real Time)

To accommodate the systems some additional modifications to the cars were required and these were carried out by RailFleet Services and included: i.	Enlargement of the Computer Room to AK2383 ii. Additional display monitors fitted to observation areas iii. Effluent tanks fitted to all cars to hold all grey water iv. Construction of an office in the Accommodation Car AK2384

The modifications were completed in January 2001 and following the installation, testing and commissioning of the measuring systems, the cars commenced production runs in August 2001. Thus a new era for track evaluation began in Australia. The three cars are currently configured as follows: i.	Computer car (AK 2383) a.	A total of 14 PCs and terminals b.	Measuring equipment (laserail beam, pantograph, accelerometers etc) c.	Two bedrooms d.	Observation end with serial port outlet, monitors, printer ii. Accommodation Car (AK 2384) a.	Eight bedrooms b.	Office with mobile phone c.	Store room iii. Facilities Car (AK 2382) a.	Generating set (100 KVA) in soundproofed room b.	Kitchen and eating area c.	Workshop/Storage area d.	Observation end as for Computer Car

From the outside the cars are virtually identical except that at the trailing ends, the two end cars have larger side windows and clear panels to facilitate a clear view of the track from the rear of the consist. The excellent view of the track from the observation areas with the low level clear panels has been widely accepted by track maintenance personnel when travelling on the consist. The excellent view of the track in combination with the overhead monitors and printers provide a comprehensive amount of information to maintenance personnel.

3. Description of the Measuring Systems

3.1 Overview

The onboard systems are being progressively integrated to allow operation of the car to be undertaken by one person. All of the onboard systems have been designed around the ROAMES software package which has been developed and supplied by Sydney based Pacific Real Time Pty Ltd. ROAMES is both a data recording and processing system. It allows inputs from a variety of systems or transducers (eg track geometry, ride, corrugation and overhead wire measurement) to be analysed and output reports to be generated both in real time or playback (of rawdata) modes. Output reports can be produced in a multitude of user selectable formats (hard copy, electronic copy, video display etc).

3.2 The Location Output System

The Location Output System Terminal (LOST) provides a central location system that will eventually control all the onboard measuring systems from a single terminal. Currently LOST controls location and the control of geometry, cross profile and the corrugation measuring systems.

The AK cars location is currently determined using an encoder fitted to the end of an axle and calibrated to give a known number of electrical pulses per track kilometre plus an operators input via a keyboard.

A GPS based computer system is currently being developed to control location as well as the input of features. The system utilises the inputs from a Differential GPS system and a shaft encoder and is designed to operate continuously accommodating GPS dropouts, tunnels etc where a GPS signal is not always available. This type of automation will greatly enhance the accuracy and repeatability of the car’s outputs as well as the freeing up of operators. 3.3 Laserail Track Geometry Measuring Equipment This equipment was supplied by ImageMap (Chicago, USA) and is state of the art technology. It is a non contact inertial system with no moving parts. A fabricated beam housing the equipment is attached to one of the bogies under the Computer Car (AK 2383). The beam is located as closely as possible behind one of the wheel sets to enable measurement of the loaded profile as much as possible. The beam sits approximately 150 mm above the rail. Brushes have been fitted around the perimeter of each laser/camera pair to prevent sunlight interfering with the imaging system. The ImageMap system is able to record at speeds up to XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. The system has proven to be robust and reliable and it yields very repeatable results. A pair of cameras and lasers is fitted at each end of the beam such that they are located over each rail. The lasers shine a thin bead of light around each rail. Four cameras digitise the image of the bead of light. The cameras and lasers are aligned so that the head of the rail, the upper part of the foot and most of the web of the rail are picked up, the underhead and top of the web being in a shadow. The inertial package, which is located in the centre of the beam, contains two pairs of accelerometers and solid state (fibreoptic) gyroscopes. The inertial package measures the movement of the beam and hence provides the geometrical vertical and horizontal reference planes whilst the camera / digitising systems measure the vertical and horizontal locations of the left and right rails in relation to the beam. All the outputs are combined to calculate the vertical and horizontal geometry of the left and right rails.

The outputs from the Laserail system are input into the ROAMES software to produce the various output reports as required by customers. The data from the Laserail system is sampled at 0.5 metre intervals. The ROAMES system allows parameters to be output which can emulate chord systems. This allows for seamless transitions when transferring from say a superseded track recording car with a chord based system to an inertial non contact system, standards previously developed for the chord measuring systems can continued to be used.

3.4 Rail Cross Profiles

Pacific Real Time Pty Ltd have developed a powerful rail cross profile system which utilises the digitised images of the rail used for the track geometry measurement. These images can be recorded at track speeds. These profiles can be stored at user defined intervals (currently five metre intervals on curves and ten metre interval on tangent track). In playback mode the Windows software allows for “new” or unworn rail templates to be overlaid on the measured profiles. The software automatically fits the unworn rail profile over the measured profile or this fitting can be done manually. Outputs from this overlaying process include, as well as a visual line diagram, the following (where applicable for each rail): i.	Headloss ii. Vertical wear iii. Gauge face wear iv. Rail cant v.	Gauge vi. Crosslevel vii. Curvature

3.5 Rail Corrugation Measurements

The system uses accelerometers mounted on the axle box of an unbraked wheelset to measure the vertical movement of each axle box. The system is based on the theory is that the axle box follows the longitudinal profile of the rail. Speed compensated data is output using software filters. A number of output parameters covering a range of corrugation wavelengths are available depending on the customer’s requirements. Pacific Real Time Pty Ltd are currently fitting a similar system to five Track Recording Cars run by the Ministry of Railroads in China (these cars are also fitted with the Laserail Track Geometry Systems).

3.6 Ride Quality System

This system is designed to measure and report the vertical and lateral accelerations of one of the AK car bodies. Two accelerometers are attached to the floor of the AK Computer Car above a bogie. These accelerometers measure the accelerations of the car body in the vertical and lateral directions. Two different methods are used to analyse the data. An ISO based system analyses data in the 1 to 2 hertz range for the lateral accelerations and in the 4 to 8 hertz range for vertical accelerations. A second method is based on the British rail method and analyses data within a 0.1 to 100 hertz range for both vertical and lateral accelerations. A continuous plot of all four output parameters can be viewed in real time on display on monitors or in playback mode. User definable threshold levels can be set to identify and list exceedences.

3.7 Overhead Catenary Wire Measurement

An instrumented pantograph is fitted to the Computer Car to measure the wire stagger and wire height on electrified track. The pantograph uses a series of conductive pads fitted across the head of contact beam. The system measures car body roll and reports the catenary wire position relative to a point midway between the rails.

3.8 Video Systems

A number of video cameras have been fitted to the Computer Car to record images such as the track (from the front of the locomotive as well as under the Computer Car), rail and wheel interaction and Overhead Catenary Wire. The images can be viewed from the observation areas and recorded on SVHS Pal videos. Track location (from LOST) is superimposed on the images.

4.0 Operation of the Cars

The cars are operated on track with a supervisor plus two or three operators depending on the nature of the work. The cars (and systems) can travel and record at track speeds and are only limited by the rated speed of the AK cars to 115 km/h.

The cars are currently recording (as at June 2004) the standard gauge interstate mainline track between all mainland capital cities as well as branch lines in New South Wales, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory (see Figure XX). A typical six monthly run conducted for the Rail Infrastructure Corporation (NSW), Australian Rail Track Corporation, WestNet Rail, BJB Joint Venture and Works Infrastructure (Leigh Creek Line) covered approximately 15,000 kms in 26 days through NSW, Victoria, South Australia, Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This demonstrates the efficiency of the system with the cars averaging on this run 650 km/day taking into account a number of rest days. The cars are travelling approximately 100,000 km per annum and are nearly fully utilised (approximately 80%).

5.0 Conclusions

The current AK cars have proven to be able to provide an efficient, reliable and repeatable means of measuring track geometry and other related parameters. The state of art systems fitted form a stepping stone from which on going developments can be formulated and implemented. In particular, the inertial track geometry system fitted to the cars greatly enhances the ability of the cars to evaluate a wider range of parameters depending on customers’ requirements. The cars have the capability for additional systems to be integrated within or in addition to those already in operation. The cars can travel and record at track speeds so there is minimal impact on commercial rail traffic. The cars have provided track owners with a valuable tool to enable accurate assessment of their asset to be measured and monitored.