Reduced wear

According to Russian railways, by lubrication wheel-side wear can be reduced by over 50%.

Example

Lubrication efforts in Russian railways

In the early 1990s, Russian railways started a study on wheel and track lubrication. The motivation was the observation of very high wheel and rail side wear. Tools for locomotives and special lubricating vehicles were developed and stationary lubricators were modernised. An optimisation of the lubricant recipe was studied.

After the project, the Russian railways had about 200 special lubrication vehicles and more than 3000 stationary rail lubricators as well as about 3500 on-board wheel lubricators installed on locomotives. The programme reduced wheel and rail wear substantially. Today’s average wheel-side wear in locomotives is 0,2 mm per 10.000 km.

Energy efficiency is seen as a side effect of lubrication efforts. According to the All-Russian Railway Research Institute (VNIIZhT), the resistance due to friction was reduced by about 30% in curves with radius less than 500 m and about 10% on tangent tracks.