Spring applied park brakes: an operational business case for freight trains

Spring applied parking brakes (SAPB), whilst having a long history within passenger rail, have not been widely adopted to date for freight rail applications in Australia. To validate the expected benefits of the BFCB-F in this application Faiveley Transport and AECOM have developed a Whole Life Cost model comparing the BFCB-F to the customersr existing brake system. Faiveley Transport has developed the BFCB-F n a spring applied park brake developed specifically for the freight market. Enabling the removal of manual brake rigging from freight wagons yielding a number of benefits in terms of safety and in terms of operational efficiency, which combined provide a positive return on investment for the operator. A number of technical, operational, and cultural reasons exist for the lack of acceptance of an automatically applied park brake in the freight environment, including: · Technical n a reliable, fail safe technology has previously not been proven on freight · Operational n activities such as free shunting require manual control of wagon brakes and consequently preclude the adoption of automatic park brakes · Cultural n a lack of appreciation within the industry of the benefits which can be achieved through adoption of such technology has resulted in no demand for such a technology As the drive on operational efficiency gathers momentum across the freight rail market the potential demand for an automatically applied park brake system has increased. Changes to the technical, operational and cultural paradigm of freight operations provide an opportunity for operators to benefit through the adoption of proven technologies in new applications.