The Finnish Transport Agency (FTA) has awarded MERMEC with the provision of measurement and inspection services for the entire national rail network, which stretches for 5,960 km (of which 620 are double and multiple lines). The contract, which includes the provision of services starting from January 2019, has a duration of ten years, renewable for an additional five years.
The measuring vehicle will be designed and suitably equipped so that it can be used also on the entire national network of high-speed lines. These lines connect the main urban centres in the south of the country up to the far north where the temperature is extremely cold and there are extreme weather conditions.
Over the next two years, MERMEC will construct a measuring train and get the certification in compliance with European standards. The special measuring vehicle, a bi-modal diesel-electric train able to travel at 160 km/h, will be equipped with a series of automatic measurement and inspection systems to identify any critical issues that may affect the safety of movement and to evaluate the infrastructure’s operating conditions for efficient predictive planning of maintenance and renewal work.
MERMEC will be responsible for ordinary and extraordinary maintenance of the measuring vehicle and its rich supply of optoelectronics, which includes systems able to measure track geometry, rail profile, rail corrugation, switches, ride comfort, catenary geometry and contact wire wear. Measurement systems will be integrated with a new high-performance ultrasound system, which will be used to identify any internal defects of the rail, which could be aggravated by the extreme temperature fluctuations, typical of the Finnish climate.
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