Addis Ababa University

Addis Ababa Institute of Technology

African Railway Center of Excellence (ARCE), Ethiopia
MSc in Railway Engineering
(Rolling stock)
Rolling Stock Construction and Maintenance

Individual Assignment

Title: - Report on AALRT Maintenance visit findings

Submitted by:
Kirubel Moges GSR/4561/14

Submitted to: Mr. Tsegaye F.

Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
February 16, 2023
Table of Contents
ALRT Visit Report ......................................................................................................................... 3

1. Introduction .......................................................................................................................... 3

1.1. Train Maintenance ........................................................................................................ 3

1.2. Maintenance Facilities .................................................................................................. 3

2. Existing Maintenance Workshop Management Structure ................................................... 4

2.1. Emergency dealing procedure ...................................................................................... 5

3. Tasks Performed in The Workshop on Preventive as Well As Corrective Maintenance .... 5

4. Work Flow For Both Preventive and Corrective Maintenances ........................................ 12

4.1. Maintenance Programmes .......................................................................................... 13

 ALRT Visit Report

1. Introduction
1.1.Train Maintenance
Railways are made up of complex mechanical and electrical systems and there are hundreds of
thousands of moving parts. If a railway service is to be reliable and safe, the equipment must be
kept in good working order and regular maintenance is the essential ingredient to achieve this. A
railway will not survive for long as a viable operation if it is allowed to deteriorate and become
unsafe because of a lack of maintenance. Although maintenance is expensive, it will become more
expensive to replace the failing equipment early in its life because maintenance has been neglected.

Rolling stock is the most maintenance-intensive part of the railway system and is the most
vulnerable if maintenance is neglected. A stalled train will block a railway immediately and will
reduce a timetable on an intensively used system to unmanageable shambles for the remainder of
the day. Reliability is the key to successful railway operation and maintenance should be the
number one priority to ensure safety and reliability is ongoing.

1.2.Maintenance Facilities

Trains require special facilities for storage and maintenance. The basic design of these facilities
has changed little in the last 100 or more years and, in many cases, the original sites and buildings
are still in daily use. Sometimes, these old layouts have made adapting to modern maintenance
systems very difficult.

The layout of a maintenance facility or depot will consist of a storage yard, a car cleaning area, an
inspection and light maintenance shed, a heavy maintenance shop, and, possibly, a separate
locomotive shop or at least an area for locomotives if EMUs are the main service providers. A
typical facility with space for EMUs works trains and locomotives might look like Figure 1.
(Larger view).
 Figure 1: layout for a depot

2. Existing Maintenance Workshop Management Structure

Maintenance Center

Maintenance
Manager

Power Eng. Con. Rolling ICT Signaling Material Power

Division Division Stock Division and Com. Division Diviosion
Division Division

Figure 2: Maintenance Work Shop Structure of AALRT

 2.1.Emergency dealing procedure

Rolling Stock Division

Dispatcher on Duty

Equipment Rolling Stock Maintenance Sub Division

Maintenance Sub
Division

Emergency
Daily Monthly
Maintenance
Inspection Maintenance
Staff
Maintenance Staff
Team

Figure 3: Emergency Dealing Procedure

3. Tasks Performed in The Workshop on Preventive as Well As Corrective

Maintenance

• Access

An essential feature of any depot is good access, for both road and rail. Good rail access means
that trains can get in and out of the depot without delaying trains on the main line and without
upsetting operations within the depot. It is no good if a train coming in has to stop at the depot
entrance while the driver gets instructions from the shunter or depot control office and the rear of
the train is still standing on the main line. This can remove two or three paths from a timetable.
Usually, along the access track into (and out of), a depot is required, if space is available. If the
railway is equipped with ATP (Automatic Train Protection), the changeover between ATP and
manual operation will probably have to take place on this track. This must be carefully
incorporated into the depot track design.
Road access is equally important. Large items of equipment may be needed to be delivered to the
depot (transformers, pre-assembled traction units), and space to allow heavy trucks to get into the
depot and turn, unload and exit must be provided. In some cases, it is necessary to provide vehicle
delivery access by road. Hard-standing areas and unloading facilities like cranes or gantries must
be considered when designing such a depot. The hard-standing needs to be designed for the
necessary loads and be located over or near a suitable track so that cars being delivered can be
craned off the road vehicle and mounted onto their bogies, which have been delivered in advance
and are already on the track. The craneage can be hired if the permanent installation of such
equipment is not considered justifiable.

• Cleaning and Stabling

Trains are stabled in depots or sidings when not in use and they need to be cleaned and
serviced. Cleaning means a regular exterior water wash and interior sweeping and dusting or
vacuuming. At longer intervals, seating upholstery and carpets must be shampooed. Exterior
washing usually means a drive-through washing machine that will wash the sides and, perhaps,
the roof. Suitable facilities must be provided in the stabling areas where trains are stored. Water,
power, and toilet cleaning systems need to be provided in such areas, adjacent to each train to be
serviced. Access to trains must be designed so that cleaning staff can reach them safely whilst
carrying their equipment. This usually means floor-height walkways alongside trains, or at least
up to the first car of a set if inter-car connections are available.

• Train Washing Machines

Train washer plant (Figure 4) works on the same principle as a car wash, except that, usually, the
train is driven through the wash and the washer itself stays in one place. Some designs of train
washer work like a very long car wash, where the train stands still and the washer move during the
cleaning cycle but these are rare. Normally, water is used for a daily wash, while a chemical wash
is used at less frequent intervals - usually several weeks. Many daily washes have a detergent
added to assist the process. In referring to a daily wash, this might extend to three days between
washes, depending on local practice and the degree of pollution and dirt collection.
Washing machines require that the track on either side is straight for at least one car's length. This
is to ensure that the car goes into the wash straight. There will also be a need for proper drainage
facilities, complete with waste water management and, for the chemical wash, waste retrieval using
a clarifier or separator. It is usual to use recirculating systems nowadays, reusing the water from
the final rinse at least, if not the ‘ready mixed’ water.

Washing machines may need a roof under certain conditions and they must be protected from
adverse weather, particularly cold. Freezing temperatures will play havoc with the pipes of a
poorly protected machine. Most operators do not wash under freezing weather conditions, so as
to avoid ice forming around the doors and other moving parts. Ice will quickly prevent train doors
from operating and will render a train useless as a result.

Chemical washes are used for heavy cleaning and the chemicals used will often require the train
to stand for some time while the chemical reacts with the dirt on the car body. The standage must
be protected against drips and the waste collected. In places where there is space, it is advisable
to do a chemical wash where it is protected from the weather. Some form of special ventilation is
likely to be required. In some facilities, the chemicals and water washes are contained in the same
washing machine.

Figure 4: Train Wash Plant

 • Wheel Lathe

Many modern depots are equipped with a wheel profiling facility known as a wheel lathe. These
are normally designed so that the wheels can be reprofiled while still on the train. Removing the
wheels requires the train to be lifted and this is an expensive business and very time-
consuming. To avoid this, the underfloor wheel lathe or "ground" wheel lathe was developed like
the one shown in Figure 5.

Figure 5: Wheel Lathe

Wheels can be removed from a train by a "wheel drop", where the wheelset is lowered underneath
the train into a basement below the depot floor. Sometimes, whole tool rooms are provided in
such areas but the ground conditions sometimes make such places difficult to keep dry and difficult
to conform with modern evacuation requirements.

Modern wheel lathes can also reprofile a wheelset which has been removed from the
train. Otherwise a separate wheel turning facility has to be provided in the workshop. Cutting has
been the most common method of reprofiling but, recently milling machines, have been making a
comeback as they can offer a longer tool life and better tolerance control on diameters.

Train wheels wear just as car tires do and they need to be checked regularly. When the wear
reaches certain limits, the treads either have to be reprofiled to the correct shape or the wheels
replaced. Reprofiling wheels is a slow and expensive process but train and wheel design and
maintenance has improved considerably over recent years, reducing the periods between visits for
reprofiling. Even so, there are still persistent cases of railways running into unforeseen or unusual
wheel wear problems and the wheel/rail interface still needs a lot more research before it is fully
understood.

Wheels on a bogie or wheels on a single vehicle must be reprofiled within limits compared with
each other. For example, a standard set for one type of passenger coach says that wheels in the
same bogie must not vary in diameter by more than 5 mm. Wheels under the same coach must not
vary more than 10 mm on different bogies. Most modern vehicles might require a tolerance as
low as 3 mm. When wheels that drive a speedometer are reprofiled, the speedometer will have to
be adjusted to compensate for the difference in wheel diameter caused by the reprofiling.

• Inspection Sheds

Special facilities are required to carry out rolling stock inspections (Figure 6). A properly
constructed building, capable of accommodating a whole train, should be provided. Access to the
underneath of the train is essential and this must be designed to allow reasonable working
conditions and safety. There are various ways of doing this. The most commonly used to be a pit
provided between the rails of the maintenance tracks and, sometimes, pits on either side of the
track as well, to allow access to the sides of the underframe equipment. A more common approach
today is the "swimming pool" design, where the floor of the shed is sunk and the tracks are mounted
on posts. This gives better access and improves the light levels under the cars.
 Figure 6: Inspection Shed

• Lifting

The traditional method for accessing bogies was to lift the car body off the bogies by use of an
overhead crane or cranes as shown in Figure 8.

With overhead cranes, each vehicle to be lifted has to be separated from its fellows in the train first
and dealt with separately. If one car in a set is defective, it has to be uncoupled and pushed into
the shop for lifting. To access the bogies, the overhead crane is used to lift one end while the bogie
is rolled clear and then the body is lower onto stands. Then the other end is lifted, the bogie rolled
clear and the body lowered onto two more stands. A quicker method is to use two cranes together
which lift both ends of the car body together and free both bogies at the same time. The body can
then be removed to another part of the workshop for maintenance. Motors, wheels and other items
can then be worked on or removed from the bogie as necessary. Naturally, this takes up a lot of
track space in the shop and requires time spent on separating the vehicle from the train and then
from its bogies. For overhauls, the bogie may be removed to a special area where it is placed on
stands for stripping and refitting work.

Jacks are the usual method of lifting nowadays (Figure 9). Vehicles can be lifted individually or,
if a fixed formation is used for normal service, more recent practice has been to lift the whole train
set. This is done by synchronized jacks. The jacks are linked by control cables and controlled by
one person from a control desk. The big advantage of this system is that you don't have to break
up the train into individual cars to do the work on one vehicle. The time saved reduces the period
the train is out of service. Jacks may be mobile, linked by cables to a control desk so that they may
be operated together, all built into the workshop floor where again the lifting system is
synchronized to allow several cars to be lifted at the same time if necessary.

Figure 7:Car Lifting

Rolling stock can be lifted on a track where there is no pit, especially if there is a need to exchange
a piece of underfloor equipment. A fork lift truck can be used to do this if there is enough room
at the sides of the trains for it to manoeuvre. Otherwise a small scissors lift table can be used. In
all cases, it is essential to ensure that the floor will take the weight of the train raised on jacks. Most
modern rolling stock is designed to be lifted with its bogies still attached so that exchange of one
piece of underfloor equipment can be carried out on a lifted train without disturbing any other
cars.
 4. Work Flow For Both Preventive and Corrective Maintenances

Daily Inspection Record (Date: / / Time: From: to : Train number: )

Shift: Operation kilometers: MC1: km, MC2: km

Table 1: Daily Inspection Record

SN Inspection item Part conditions

Inspection area Left side Middle Right side
Appearance inspection for car body
Coupler system inspection
Bogie inspection
1 Non-electricity
inspections Inspection of brake system and its auxiliary
facilities
Traction system inspection
Sanding control module checks
Inspection area MC1 TP MC2
Partition door checks
Inspection of lighting in the passenger
Saloon
2 compartment
inspections
Inspection of interior decorations of the passenger
compartment
TV appearance and display checks
Inspection area MC1 MC2
Inspection of interior decorations in cab
Inspection of a cab side door
Driver's cab
3 inspections and Checks of cab fire extinguishers
function test Checks of micro-switches in-cab equipment
cabinet, switches, buttons, knobs on driver's desk,
and broadcasting system
Tests of brain functions
4 Condition of train cleanness
Remarks
 4.1.Maintenance Programmes

Rolling stock maintenance can be programmed in one of three ways; by mileage, by time or by
conditioning monitoring. Of these three methods, condition monitoring is the most
recent. Traditionally, maintenance was carried out on a time basis, usually related to safety items
like braking and wheel condition. Many administrations later adopted a mileage-based
maintenance system, although this is more difficult to operate as you have to keep records of all
vehicle mileages and this is time-consuming unless you have a modern train control and data
gathering system. There is also the fact that a train will deteriorate just as quickly if it is stored
unused somewhere as it would if it was being run in service every day. Only the items which
deteriorate will vary.

AALRT is given a daily visual inspection of the underneath and the pantographs. The toilet system
is emptied every three days and the trains return to their base depot every 5-6 days for their 4,500
km inspection. Examination of equipment such as traction motors and bogies take place every 18
days.

Condition monitoring is achieved by checking the operation of the equipment and only changing
something if it shows signs of wear beyond preset limits. The checking is often done using
onboard monitoring and storing the data gathered in a computer for downloading at the
maintenance facility. Of course, it is a recent development made available by the introduction of
information technology on trains. Such systems are now becoming so sophisticated that it is
possible to have failure predictions for some items of equipment. A combination of on-board data
gathering and depot maintenance systems have been developed into complete maintenance
management systems on lines where the modern rolling stock has been introduced.
 c (Car 101# - 220#)
Train No.： Class of inspection： Team and group:
Date： Operating kilometers MC1: km MC2: km

Mutual
First Carbon Second inspected
Contents Operator by
strip Carbon strip
Left End（mm)
Position One （mm)
Position Two（mm)

Measurem Position Three（mm)

ent of Position Four（mm)
pantograp
h and Position Five（mm)
carbon Position Six（mm)
pan
Position Seven （mm)
Right End （mm)
Minimum thickness (mm)
Interval inspection between carbon
pan and terminal angle (less than
2mm)
Missing part record of carbon pan
LxWxH (mm)
Uprising time of pantograph (s) ≤10s
Dropping time of pantograph (s) ≤10s
N.M) 100±10(N.M)
The contact pressure of the
pantograph (N.M) 100±10 (N.M)
Table 2: Daily Inspection Record