Energy Absorbing Track

Among trips outside the paths and crashing into a dead end, trips at low speeds are most common, when drivers underestimate the speed and overestimate the capabilities of the brakes . Basically, such departures are observed among passenger trains, including suburban ones , thereby endangering passengers and the locomotive brigade . Also, a collision even at a low speed can lead to the rolling stock coming off the rail and causing damage. As a result, in 1999, the Moscow Railway began to create a special protective device that would be mounted on the plate of the brake prism and significantly reduce the force of impact, and therefore the resulting acceleration. The parameters for ensuring the safety of passengers and the locomotive crew, the types of external factors according to the degree of their impact on the person, as well as the requirements that this protective device had to satisfy, were pre-set. Since to determine the energy intensity it was necessary to determine the most probable mass and speed of the train, to simplify the calculations for the most probable case, a collision with the dead end prism of the ER2T electric train consisting of 12 cars (trains of this length are very common on the Moscow railway) was adopted at a speed of 10 km / h (the set speed of the train at a distance of 100-150 m from the dead end).

There was a project to use a rubber-metal absorption device installed on passenger cars as a shock absorber. However, the estimated energy intensity of the future stationary shock absorber was supposed to be about 2200 kJ, while in the absorbing device this indicator was almost 15 times less. Given their relatively high cost, as well as the fact that the track absorber due to the nature of its work is almost one-time (that is, for one operation), they were forced to abandon this project.

Currently, the design and appearance of the dead end stop is regulated by Order of the Ministry of Railways of the Russian Federation No. 9-ЦЗ dated 07/03/1991 On the design of typical permanent speed reduction discs, portable signals, signal and direction signs. ^[one]

The new emphasis was developed jointly by scientists from VNIIZHT and ZAO Resource. The device had a working stroke of 1 meter, and the calculated energy intensity was not less than 1400 kJ with a response force of 1.5-1.7 MN. Theoretically, this was supposed to ensure a safe stop of a 12-car electric train at a speed of 10 km / h. As a result, a prototype of this track energy-absorbing stop was installed at the Yaroslavl station in Moscow . For the widespread use of this emphasis at other stations in the country, practical tests were required and they were carried out on December 19, 2002 at the Warsaw Station in St. Petersburg . Partly, the reason for this was the departure on November 11 of the same year of an uncontrolled electric train to the platform of the Baltic Station , which led to human casualties. For testing, a 12-car train was composed of 7 cars (No. 02, 03, 04, 06, 08, 09, 10) from ER2-368 and 5 (No. 05, 06, 07, 08, 10) from ER2-396. Since the test path was not electrified, the composition of the locomotive TEP70-0220 pushed. This test turned out to be not entirely successful - car No. 36809 was formed in half (later a video with this test became widely known on the Internet under the headings “Crash test of an electric train”, “Test of ER2”, etc.). As a result, manufacturers were sent a request to refine this protective device. In December 2004, at the same station, repeated tests were carried out, as a result of which the desired effect was obtained - the emphasis was able to stop the 12 car electric train without any damage to the latter, and the parameters obtained fully corresponded to the passport characteristics. ^{[2] [3]}

• On August 19, 2005, at the Yaroslavl station, during the upsetting of the postal and baggage train No. 904 (weight 1100 tp, 17 wagons and the shunting locomotive ČME3), the last wagon hit a dead end prism at a speed of 23 km / h. Prism was equipped with PES, which worked at full speed. Double exceeding the calculated speed led to the deformation of the car, however, the people on the train were not injured, and the prism was not damaged. According to rough estimates, in the absence of PES, the car could have traveled to the prism, damaged the support of the contact network and broken contact suspension , which in turn could lead to a blackout of all electrified railway tracks.

• A stationary shock absorber has been created // Lokomotiv . - 2002 (No. 11). - S. 30-31 .
• Rolling stock protects a new dead end prism // Locomotive . - 2006 (No. 1). - S. 31 .

• First PES test (December 19, 2002) on YouTube
• http://www.newsru.com/russia/19aug2005/train.html - The result of a collision of train number 904 with a prism equipped with PES.