Preventing Rails From Heat-Induced Deformation
On-going heat periods without rain can cause rails to expand above their limits. They start to deform, blocking or even derailing trains.
In 2021, UK’s Network Rail has established a weather monitoring system for its West Coast main line to reduce the number of delays on that line.
Currently, the 60 stations are operating through their first summer. The monitoring system revealed rail temperatures of 50 °C and more. Based on the atmospheric measurements conducted by the Lufft WS601 smart weather sensors, the rails tend to hover around 20 degrees above the surrounding air temperature, Quadrant Transport reports.
Railway traffic is susceptible to weather in many regards, be it storms, heavy rain, or ongoing heat. Smart and easy-to-integrate monitoring systems can support railroad network operators in their important work to keep the traffic going, e.g. by cooling endangered track sections with water.
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Image: Network Rail
WS601-UMB Smart Weather Sensor
Compact all-in-one weather sensor with measurement of temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind direction and wind speed.
Compact all-in-one weather sensor from the WS-Series. Measurement of temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind direction and wind speed.
- Temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, air pressure, wind direction, wind speed
- Ultrasonic/Wind, NTC/T, Capacitive/RH, MEMS capacitive/Pressure, Tipping spoon and bucket/Precipitation
- Wind detection with birdproof construction. Compact all-in-one weather sensor, low power, heater, aspirated radiation shield, open communication protocol
- RS485 with supported protocols UMB-Binary, UMB-ASCII, Modbus-RTU, Modbus-ASCII, XDR and SDI-12