South Western Railway trains fitted with new ‘blade-bursting’ braking system

New equipment, developed by Siemens and funded by Network Rail, has been fitted to the 30-year-old South Western Railway trains.

“It increases the level of friction between the wheel and the rail,” explained Neil Drury, director of engineering at SWR. “The greater the friction, the better the brake.

“These trains were originally not equipped with grinding machines at all. The first generation was a single shot: the driver used it in an emergency.

“Next was a standard sander. Now we have a variable rate system that releases sand based on train speed and track conditions.”

Tests by the Rail Safety and Standards Board show it can stop a train on slick wet rails in half the distance of previous equipment, a quarter the distance of a train with no sand at all, and double the distance of a similar train braking in ideal conditions on dry rails.

Could the new equipment have prevented the Salisbury Tunnel and Talerddig crashes?

“That’s a good question, but we can’t say,” said Mr. Drury. “The top of the rail surface at Salisbury was particularly contaminated. What we can say is that the sand system is an incremental step that is more effective than it was fitted previously.”