SKF
More Effective Maintenance of Sydney’s Railway with Condition Monitoring from SKF
- This article first appeared in the Railway-News magazine Issue 1 2022.
A long-term test of two SKF railway condition monitoring solutions in Sydney’s passenger rail fleet has shown encouraging results. With more knowledge about the condition of components, it is possible to move away from time- and distance- based maintenance, boosting uptime and availability.
Sydney is Australia’s largest city as well as one of the nation’s fastest- growing urban areas. Operated by government agency Sydney Trains, the 800-kilometre-long passenger rail network’s eight core lines are used for close to 400 million rail journeys each year.
The job of maintaining the bulk of the Sydney passenger rail rolling stock is undertaken by engineering business Downer Rail & Transit Systems.
Time- and Distance- Based Railway Maintenance
Downer has traditionally structured its maintenance programmes around time- and distance-based models. Components in the trains are replaced once they approach the end of the lifespan recommended by the OEM. However, with passenger journeys trending upwards, Frank Lukacevic, senior mechanical engineer, Downer and Christian Douglas, Downer’s asset strategy manager, have been tasked with finding new ways to reduce downtime and safely extend component use.
