In a bid to increase efficiency and reduce delays for passengers, Network Rail is trialling “formation flying” engineering trains to repair and renew the 20,000 miles of railway track it’s responsible for maintaining. The pioneering technique was successfully used at Sandy, Bedfordshire, on a set of railway switches and crossings in February, which were being replaced as part of the Railway Upgrade Plan.
At Sandy, for the first time in history, a pair of engineering trains were joined together connected by an umbilical and ran in parallel to simultaneously deliver tamping and dynamic track stabilisation (DTS) which simulated the equivalent of 200 trains passing over the tracks consecutively. Passenger trains were then able to start using the railway at speeds as high as 125mph as soon as the engineering team had finished because the track and ballast were firmly ‘bedded in’ – which meant Network Rail avoided thousands of pounds in compensation payments.
The new approach to engineering could potentially save Network Rail £250,000 (293,500 euros) per week in costs by allowing trains to run at higher speeds once engineering is complete.
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