Guidelines for rail reprofiling

Abstract

The condition of the rails affects the comfort and safety of railway transport. Managing the rail life cycle on modern railway networks has been playing an increasingly important role. Inspection, preventive and corrective maintenance of rails are significant activities in the integral maintenance of the railway superstructure and substructure. The competitiveness of railway transport on the traffic market requires the realization of maintenance activities in short periods of line closure. The paper presents guidelines for rail reprofiling based on the experiences of railway Infrastructure Managers and the recommendations of European technical regulations. The need for grinding new rails after laying the track was pointed out. The advantage of preventive over corrective reprofiling is emphasized. Different types of target profiles of the reprofiled railhead are presented. This paper aims to improve the knowledge of experts in the field of railway infrastructure maintenance.