Wednesday 31 October 2012

Facts and details about overhead railway equipment

By Christopher Cooper


Railway being one of the cheapest as well as a common mode of transport is often liked by people as it offers them a fast and smooth travel. Railways are also used for transporting goods from one place to the other. The railways has seen several considerable development over the years and one of its development is the overhead fitting or overhead equipment.

What is Overhead Railway Equipment?

Generally the overhead wires or the lines are said to be the overhead railway equipment. These lines or wires are mainly used for transmitting electrical energy to trains, trolleybuses, trams, etc,. from the supply point of energy to quite some distance. There Overhead Railway Equipment (OHE) has several other terms such as OHLE or OLE (Overhead Line Equipment), OHL (Overhead Lines), OHW (Overhead Wiring), OCS (Overhead Contact Systems) and Catenary.

Overhead Railway Equipment - Construction Principle

The design or construction of this railway equipment is based on the principle of using one or more number of overhead rails or wires, especially in tunnels. These rails or wires are located over the rail tracks and are raised to the potential of high electricity by connecting them to the feeder stations that are placed at regular intervals. An electric grid of high-voltage passes electric current to the feeder stations. The trolley pole, pantograph or a bow collector are the equipments that are used by the train to collect power from the overhead lines. The steel circuit as well as the overhead wire acts as a conductor for the electrical circuit.

Overhead Railway Gear - How does it operate?

A definite limit is maintained for the overhead line or wire to enable the collection of high voltage electricity. In order to achieve this, a messenger wire is used. The messenger wire sends messages through a vertical wire at frequent intervals. The vertical wire is called as the dropper wire. When the bow collector of a train is touched by the dropper wire, the carbon insert present on the top wears down. The collection of electricity becomes very efficient due to this regular wear and tear.

Once the systems of wire suspension can't accommodated the clearance distance, when it is positioned far away then the rigid overhead rails are employed to replace them. But, when employing this overhead railway gear it's important that the surrounding temperature is continual as a way to avoid any expansion or contraction harm.

Overhead Railway Equipment - Important Details

It is necessary to know about the fact that due to the bow collectors swinging impact, a mechanical tension is possessed on the overhead railway line or wire. When such a condition occurs, problem may be caused as the waves that is required to travel at a faster rate than the train instead standing waves are generated by the swing. The generation of standing waves may result in the wire breakage, which can be highly hazardous. In order to prevent such accidents, the hydraulics or weights are used to increase the tension on the high-speed wires. The mid-point tension wires are also used to monitor the expansion as well as the contraction.




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