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Catenaria and Panto - huge problems.

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Skogsgurra

Skogsgurra

Electrical
Mar 31, 2003
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This summer has been very hot here in Sweden.

And, for some reason, the condition of the catenarias and pantographs seems to be worse than ever. So, trains stop all the time. And when electricity is gone, so is air conditioning, toilets don't work, there is no water and the passengers are not allowed to leave the trains - for safety reasons. It is really bad inside those waggons after a few hours.

Is it equally bad elsewhere? Or is it just us?

What is being done about it in your countries?

HELP!!! (no, I go by car [bigsmile] ) - but nonetheless...

Gunnar Englund
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Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
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Hello Gunner

Forgive my ignorance but what are "catenarias and pantographs" in Sweden? I under pantographs to mean a mechanical linkage so one movement copies another and cantenarias as a hyperbolic cosine. Dang if I can understand the question or relevance to a crippled train.

You have me scratching my head Sir!

Chuck
 
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Overhead catenary power, typically to a locomotive. The pantograph is the pickup mounted to the roof of the locomotive which adjusts for variations in clearance between loco and catenary.

Gunnar,

No problems reported here on the rail system. Some of the transmission system seems a bit lower to the ground than normal. It's only 400,000V so nothing to worry about. [wink]
 
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Hmm, it was hot from Budapesht to Prague last week, but we had no issues on the cross-country trains we rode, nor on streetcars within the cities. Are the cables drooping noticeably in Sweden, beyond the capability of the pantographs to flex/adjust to them? Did they make them from cheese, or did they just tighten them during the Swedish winter and not tighten them enough to compensate for global warming?

 
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Panto and Catanaria, the Wagner opera depicting the electrifying tale of two aging lovers who droop in the heat and can no longer connect, leaving their sweltering dependents sitting on their thrones without chance of relief or a sense of completion...

"Will work for (the memory of) salami"
 
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This page describes the state of the art around the world:


In the USA's Northeast Corridor, between Washington DC and Boston MA, the overhead wire system uses three paraxial wires above the rails; the contact wire, the messenger wire, and the catenary wire, connected by a multitude of vertical drop wires. Only recently did I notice the 'sweep' of those wires. I am not aware of any major issues with them, except that the latticed support columns are all badly rusted, and they're much too old to be made of Cor-Ten steel. AFAIK, the wires did not require or get any special preparation for use by the relatively high speed Acela trains.

The electric locomotives typically have a pantograph at each end, but I do not recall ever seeing both extended at once, so all of the current must go through the one sliding contact.






Mike Halloran
Pembroke Pines, FL, USA
 
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I have been extremely busy this Summer and haven't paid much attention to anything (thankfully). But if the noise from the media sources is true, then it seems to be a cooler-than-normal Summer most places here in the US.

I'm loving it, since last Summer was scorching hot.

I blame all the global climate confusion on the Klingons. Yep, that's it. [wink]

TygerDawg
Blue Technik LLC
Virtuoso Robotics Engineering
 
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The United States is having a record low temperatures for the summer.
Antarctic sea ice extents (the floating ice around the Antarctic continent itself) just set an all-time record high for the date.
Satellite global temperature anomalies (the difference between actual and the 1970's average temperature for each area on that date) are only 1/3 of one degree C high right now. I

I sympathize with Sweden's electric cable sagging, but seems like you need to
(1) adjust out the droop slightly with the weights at each cable interval tower,
(2) increase the catenary pressure "up" on the parallelgrams to maintain contact at the high points under the supports while still keeping a less-than-maxium-allowed pressure at the catenary low points
(3) slow the train speed down slightly so the cables slide easier at points of high pressure (the low spots) and don't whip (bounce) so much at the lows
 
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Thanks for all the answers! So far, I am not so sure that I learned much from them. More input needed!

The papers and the news on radio/TV say that this should be a problem in the winter when ice is the main problem - not in the summer. So, seing it happen now is unusual and somewhat alarming.

It may also be, that there are no more problems now than it used to be. But, if a reporter happened to be on-board one train and some other media type on another when the overhead line breaks - then it will be "happeneing everywhere".

The Railway system was a government thing for many years. The stationary installation still is, I think, but Rolling stock is operated by a number of private companies and the pie-throwing is getting more and more like mud-slinging where all parties accuse each other for bad maintenance. And I think that it actually could be the reason.

Jeff's hitherto unknown Wagner opera could perhaps point to a solution, I think. Is there a Hero(in) in it that solves the problem? Or is it more Hamlet-like with lots of killing and curtain when everyone is dead?

Keep suggestions coming! Is there any functioning warning equipment? Devices that tell the engineer (the guy running the train) that panto or catenaria is in a bad shape or need adjustment? I have read about cameras looking at the Contact Point, but they seem to miss most of the problems. One source says that the hit rate is around 4%. Not exactly brilliant.


Gunnar Englund
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
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Interesting article:


Hope this link is ok.

Also to check track and I believe catenary alignment etc:


By the way, in the uk (England after September), a "panto" is a pantomime. This is a sort of musical for children put on at Christmas time. Usually taking a fairy tale as a basis eg "Jack and the Beanstalk". Often being put on in the local hall. My claim to fame being the dame in Robin Hood once. The beard enhanced the role.

Finally, only the Italians would have a song about a funicular railway:

 
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I have read all the postings with great interest. Thank you all!

I started the thread saying "This summer has been very hot here in Sweden" and thought that the heat perhaps had something to do with the catenary problems.

Now, it is not only the catenary. A large chunk of the landscape, NE of where I live, is now on fire. This is the most widespread fire ever in modern (16th Century and onwards) Sweden and it continues to grow. The area covered is said to be around 100 Square Miles (16*10 km) and growing.
I guess that the catenaries in this area will be in worse shape after the fire.

Gunnar Englund
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
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Addendum: The cited article was from Sunday. The fire has spread and is not at all under control. Italian and French wildfire fighting airplanes are on their way to help. It doesn't look good.

Gunnar Englund
--------------------------------------
Half full - Half empty? I don't mind. It's what in it that counts.
 
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Gunnar:

I used to work a lot on pantographs - more on haul trucks than on trains - but the same should apply. In the summer-months we operate during quite high temperatures (ambient more than 40˚C easily during the day) but heat-wise we did not really had problems. I would have looked into two directions - either the source or a similar issue on the rolling stock.

By looking into ambient heat, I would doubt that it would affect either the source or the rolling stock itself - except if your equipment is not designed (?) to operate on high temperatures. We do get sometimes temperature trips on transformers (source), but that is only if the transformer is heavily loaded and the ambient temperature is also quite high.
Fires can be a real issue. Smoke cause trips on overhead lines (source-lines - not necessarily the trolley-wires) and from an operational view-point it is dangerous travelling through smoke if you can't see clearly. I haven't seen steel-structures been damaged by fires - but I have encountered a few trips during field-fires due to flash-overs.

I tend to agree with the maintenance issue - from my experience it is normally where the problems (or rather our problems) started. Brushes, cylinders shock-breakers and poor workmanship were our biggest issues - all issues what can be minimized by a optimized maintenance strategy, except the last one.
Brushes: Worn/broken brushes, wrong type of brushes (material wise) and loose connections.
Cylinders: Oil Leaks and wrong pressure settings. This have an effect on the force been applied between the panto-rack and the trolley-wire.
Shock-breakers: Leaks and broken springs. If empty or broken the panto-racks are damaged when it is lowered.

Except for visual inspections and a sensor measuring the force applied to the lines I do not know of any other methods to check your panto-racks.

Just my two cents...
Regards
Ralph

Currently our biggest issue is actually copper-theft.



[red]Failure seldom stops us, it is the fear for failure that stops us - Jack Lemmon[/red]

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Dar Hoxton. GOt a virus on your first link. The Trend from Microsoft went made. It took about 20 clicks to clear the list. I will now restart.
 
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