Route management and route maintenance

ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG was established in October 2009 following the merger of ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG and ÖBB-Infrastruktur Betrieb AG. Since the restructuring of ÖBB in the year 2005, both of these companies were operational subsidiaries under ÖBB-Holding. The interfaces between the two infrastructure companies, however, were too versatile. There were many overlaps and thus inefficiency, in particular with the maintenance and retrofitting of existing lines. The consolidation into one infrastructure company allowed ironing out overlaps and efficiently allocating assignments.

For the first time, it was possible to establish ONE route vision and ONE responsibility for the entire railway network and all facilities. Now there is joint planning of repairs and investments in the railway network. The aim is a faster and more efficient improvement of the network quality. ÖBB-Infrastuktur’s main objectives for the coming two to three years are more quality on the routes and thus more quality in transport management – and ultimately: more punctuality!

Many routes dating back to the monarchy

This quality initiative is urgently needed as currently 70% of the ÖBB railway network dates back to the monarchy. In the 80s and 90s, when there was a dire need for forward-looking reinvestments in the existing network, there were no funds available. Accordingly, the main lines, and particularly the Western railway line from Vienna via Linz to Salzburg, have reached their limits. And correspondingly high is now the need for investments in the maintenance and renewal of the existing network.

Since the late 90s, the owner – the Republic of Austria – has been actively supporting ÖBB in the modernisation and development of the railway network.Currently, a comprehensive initiative for the strengthening of ÖBB-Infrastuktur is underway. Every year, more than €2 billion are invested in the development and about €550 million for reinvestments as well as €350 million in the maintenance of the railway network.

With the foundation of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, the maintenance and improvement of the existing network were concentrated in two areas complementing each other. On the one hand, there is the Route and Railway Station Management that plans, commissions and coordinates the maintenance of the railway network, and on the other hand, there is the Facilities Services Division that implements these tasks and is in charge of maintenance.

Route and Railway Station Management: ONE route vision – ONE responsibility

The Route and Railway Station Management Division provides safe facilities for the railway operation in a quality in line with demand and thus creates the basis for a safe and punctual operation of railway traffic on ÖBB’s network. This task comprises the entire responsibility for the management and maintenance of about 5,700km of railway network and 946 railway stations and stops. In order to enhance the quality of all facilities, medium-term maintenance programmes are developed that, apart from the elimination of the lines subject to speed restriction, also include noise protection measures, P&R facilities, safety measures for railway crossings as well as the maintenance and redevelopment of railway stations and stops. This holistic view and investment planning for the existing ÖBB facilities has been made possible for the first time thanks to the reorganisation of ÖBB-Infrastruktur.

The activities of the Route and Railway Management Division will initially focus on the gradual elimination of lines subject to speed restrictions and restrictions in ÖBB’s core network in order to safeguard the timetable and improve operational quality. Currently, there are about 300 lines subject to speed restriction in the ÖBB railway network with a total length of approximately 209km. If no countermeasures are taken quickly and targeted investments made, this figure would increase by 80-100 every year. The aim of the Route and Railway Station Management Division is to first eliminate the lines subject to speed restrictions in ÖBB’s core network and then to do the preparation works for the realisation of the concept ‘Target network 2025’. With this project, ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG intends to closely link high performance routes with regional suburban services as basis for a nation-wide integrated synchronised timetable and for the increasing shift of goods transport to the railway. These preparation works for the target network 2025 are to include – among other things – the evaluation of all existing railway lines regarding capacity utilisation, possible capacity and investment requirements.

Long-term strategy for route maintenance

The basis for the planning of investments and the commissioning of development stages is the long-term strategy for the route maintenance.

 ÖBB has been conducting life cycle cost (LCC) analyses in the infrastructure area for about 10 years in order to determine the required investments and maintenance measures and to plan their time schedule. As a result of these analyses, there are now more than 500 so-called base cycles for individual trades available – i.e. for tracks, point switches, platforms, railway crossing pavements, bridges and overhead contact lines. The base cycles represent the investment and maintenance requirements for defined standard elements such as, for example, radius, rail profile or rail stability, strain on the track etc and also take into account the costs of operational hindrances. Currently, the Route and Railway Station Management Division works on the development of a new LCC tool, with which several variants for an optimised maintenance can be elaborated. The already existing maintenance strategies are used for the calculation of new variants. The existing strategies for the individual route sections and elements are combined by the route manager into an LCC route optimum.

The Route and Railway Station Management Division assigns the implementation in specific maintenance measures and the inspection of the facilities to service providers in the ÖBB Group. The Facilities Services Division of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG is responsible for route maintenance and inspection. And ÖBB-Immobilienmanagement GmbH, a subsidiary of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, is in charge of the maintenance of railway stations. Quality control is made with random tests and inspections by company-internal test engineers.

Route Manager as central coordinator

A new function was introduced in the context of ÖBB-Infrastruktur’s reorganisation that plays a central role in the management of the facilities: the Route Manager acts as central coordinator regarding the maintenance strategy, the planning of investments and the implementation of specific measures on the route and in railway stations. The Route Manager bundles all information regarding the route, manages the operational implementation of the maintenance strategy and coordinates the maintenance measures with other ongoing programmes on the route (e.g. for noise protection, safety measures for railway crossings or the construction of Park&Ride facilities). He ensures that the defined quality targets are met both in the strategy and planning as well as in the implementation of maintenance measures. Furthermore, the Route Manager orders the services required for maintenance from the Facilities Services Division of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG or from ÖBB-Immobilienmanagement GmbH. For routes and facilities no longer in use, the Route Manager organises the closure of the route and, if necessary, also the dismantling. The Route Manager also plays an important role in the development of the risk management with detailed contingency plans and crisis scenarios for key facilities.

Quality assurance with innovative technologies in track construction

Also with ÖBB, new technologies in route management play an increasingly important role. Increased strain on tracks, high traction capacities and not least shrinking maintenance budgets, make it necessary to find innovative solutions for the infrastructure maintenance. The aim is to increase the technical useful life of the facilities, to extend the maintenance cycles and to reduce manpower requirements – in short: to markedly reduce the total life cycle costs.

Also, in track and point construction, there is a demand for high quality products that require only a minimum of maintenance and possibly have a long term availability. One of the key innovations of the past years in the track area is the ‘soled sleeper’ (USP). An elastic layer on the underside of concrete sleepers has a positive impact on the dynamic behaviour of the track in the ballast bed and generally increases the track bed quality.

The enhanced load distribution results in a reduced ballast strain and thus to a marked extension of the tamping intervals. In especially narrow track curves, where high traverse stress occurs, the global track stiffness can be increased with the use of reinforced rail clamps in the rail fastening or sleepers with higher lateral resistance (e.g. frame sleeper, HD sleeper). The improved position stability reduces the risk of lateral buckling of the track and also allows gap-free welding of tracks with curvature radii up to < 200m. The problem of high rail wear in narrow curves can be addressed with the use of rails of high steel grade (≥ 350 HB). ÖBB uses these for curvature radii starting from R < 1200m and thus reduces the lateral wear by factor 3 compared with the common rail grades of 260 HB (hardness Brinell). In addition, this serves to counteract the highly increasing problem of rail surface faults of the type ‘head check’. A markedly extended service life in the track with only slightly higher investment costs helps saving costs and strengthens competitiveness. In track construction, the big step forward was taken in the last years towards the ‘plug-in point switch’ with the change from wooden to reinforced-concrete sleepers as well as with the introduction of a completely new point motor and locking system.

The clamp point lock with mechanical connecting rods was replaced with a hydraulic reversing system with electronic sensor monitoring and encapsulated turnout lock (system Spherolock, Hydrolink and Hydrostar of voestalpine Eisenbahnsysteme). Point switches for ÖBB’s core network are by now delivered just-in-time with point switch transport wagons directly to the place of installation and inserted with railway cranes in just a few components into the already pre-compacted ballast bed. This new total switch point solution that is connected to the signal box and permanently monitored by the point diagnosis system now only requires inspection intervals of six months instead of six weeks. Sleeper soles with different stiffnesses as well as crossings with movable frogs are installed for routes with high loads or routes for speeds of more than 200km/h to improve the stability of the position of the point switches.

Apart from the quality of the products, however, there is also the quality of the installation and, above all, the regular high quality maintenance and repair are important factors for the life time and life cycle costs. Modern monitoring systems allow preventative maintenance and can forecast the optimal reinvestment time for the required renewal of a facility. One example for this is the ÖBB track-recording vehicle EM250 that is capable of carrying out track geometry recordings with a non-contact inertial measuring system every 25cm and ensuring safe and economic management in accordance with the route and track-dependent maintenance plan.

The maintenance plan is based on the degree of deterioration of the tracks. The current state of wear of the rails is recorded through on optical rail profile measurement and the even running of the vehicles assessed through the determination of the equivalent conicity (= parameter for the stable running of vehicles). The local responsible for the facilities accompanies the inspection runs of the EM250. Thus, immediate measures can be initiated directly after the control run. A navigation system with dGPS localisation, as well as a route video, support the locating of faults and damaged spots in the track. The import of all measuring data in ÖBB’s superstructure database allows realtime analyses regarding the existing superstructure and its quality status. Track deterioration rates can be determined with the newly developed track bed analysis and prognosis system NATAS and corrective measures can be timely initiated.

Another highly efficient maintenance method has been pushed by ÖBB since 2003: the so-called ‘integrated maintenance’. With the combined tamping and grinding of the tracks in a check interval or one after the other within a short interval, the tamping intervals can be demonstrably extended and the service life in the track extended due to the lower stress on the ballast. Also, modern track construction machines such as the high performance 4-sleeper tamping machine 09-4X with an hourly output of about 2,000m are regularly used on the ÖBB network and help reduce availability limitations to a minimum. One of the latest innovations in the field of track maintenance is the PM 1000 that celebrated its world premiere in 2009 in Austria. This machine for subgrade improvement with ballast cleaning, allows a complete subgrade rehabilitation in one process by using three clearing chains for selective cleaning, processing or disposal of excavated soil and track ballast. Thus the high disposal costs can be markedly reduced. For ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG, innovative technologies and maintenance strategies in track construction are an essential element of a sustainable and economic management of their facilities.

About the author

After finishing higher education at the technical high school for construction and engineering in Krems, Mr. Werner Baltram joined ÖBB in 1980. He started his career as a member of the tracks management team in Lower Austria and continued as a technical expert for bridge construction. From 1993 onwards he took up the function of con – struction manager and/or project lead at a series of large-scale projects such as the extension of the S7 train line connecting Vienna with Airport Wien Schwechat or the construction of a new train track from Parndorf to Kittsee. In 2007 he became Head of Department at ÖBB-Infrastruktur Bau AG, responsible for reinvestments in the railway network. Since the founding of ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG in October 2009, Werner Baltram has been Head of Route and Railway Station Management Division at ÖBB-Infrastruktur AG.