The Finnish Transport Agency (FTA) has awarded MERMEC a contract for measurement and inspection services for the entire national rail network, which stretches for 5,960 km. The contract, starting from January 2019, has a duration of 10 years, renewable for an additional five years.
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.
The MERMEC team of specialists, who will handle the project on site, will have to plan the vehicle runs in coordination with the FTA, as well as perform the measurement campaigns, process the data in an integrated manner, produce periodic reports on the work progress of and critical issues. The reports will contain data, analysis, classification of critical issues, trends and projections that will enable the efficient and effective planning of railway infrastructure maintenance.
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.
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