Pandrol
Futureproofing Non-Ballasted Track: Pandrol’s Common Interface System
This article first appeared in the Railway-News Magazine Issue 3 2023.
By John Porrill, Fastening Systems Technical Director
Pandrol’s new Common Interface System is a game-changer for the rail industry, enabling slab track to be adapted to meet changing performance needs for the first time.
Very low maintenance requirements and long life are major advantages of non-ballasted track (NBT) over conventional ballasted systems. NBT has a higher first cost than ballasted track and is time consuming to construct, but once in place it provides a stable track system that could still be in use a century later. In theory…
In practice, the rigidity of NBT creates its own set of problems, particularly in urban areas. Once concrete has been installed, it is very costly to adjust the track geometry.
When new housing developments spring up alongside an NBT rail system, residents are prone to complain about noise and vibration. This leads to increased performance requirements. The problem? Without the flexibility to adapt to the new noise and vibration mitigation demands, the whole track has to be modified, or lifted and rebuilt from scratch.
Now, for the first time, Pandrol has a solution to futureproofing NBT. The Common Interface System allows rail infrastructure owners to adapt NBT to meet changes in performance requirements, quickly and affordably.
What Is the Common Interface System?
Currently, the concrete elements used for NBT have interfaces that are aligned to specific fastening systems and anchorages. Pandrol’s Common Interface System (CIS) provides a common connection point for a range of different fastening assemblies that can be easily swapped. When vibration and noise mitigation requirements change, rather than having to modify or replace the whole track, the fastening system can simply be swapped to achieve the required performance level.
