RM Rail develops a bogie of increased load capacity

RM Rail, a leading rolling stock manufacturer in Russia, has developed a bogie of increased load capacity. It will be presented at the International Railway Fair in the area 1520 “PRO//Motion.Expo” which will take place on August 26-29 in Shcherbinka.

The company introduces to the market a fundamentally new 25 tf axle load railcar bogie, model 18-9891 (type 3, GOST 9246-2013). RM Rail Engineering acted as the sponsor of the project with the involvement of St. Petersburg State Transport University.

The development meets the key technical requirements embedded in the industry advancement strategy. On the one hand, the bogie has less impact on the track, even compared to the axle load of 23.5 tf. On the other hand, it is designed in such a way as to minimize the wear of wheel flanges in operation, which significantly reduces the need for spare parts and repairs.

The bogie has a conventional three-piece layout and consists of a cast bolster and solebars, central spring suspension, wheelsets with adapters and cassette-type bearing units, removable rubber-sprung backlash-free bearers, brake rigging.

Owing to the improved solutions, the rail car negotiates curves better, wheel flange and rail side wear is significantly reduced. Solebar dynamic loads have been lowered, but at the same time the solebar service life has been increased. Designers managed to minimize noise and vibration, which is especially important when the train passes residential areas.

The central spring suspension provides effective shock absorption of empty, small and fully loaded rail cars.

A typical brake rigging design with transversal brake bars as per GOST 4686, block holders and keys as per GOST 34075 and an automatic braking mode support beam as per GOST 9246 was selected. This means that maintenance services will be available at any railcar depot.

The solebar and bolster service life is 32 years. The overhaul mileage of the bogie before the first repair is 500 thousand km or 5 years.

Sergey Drobzhev, RM Rail Technical Development Director:

- Design of the bogie is protected by five patents. However, we propose to make it a “people’s vehicle” and are ready to provide technical documentation for its manufacturing, repair and maintenance, exempting users from royalty payments. The bogie’s future is not limited, it is associated with an axle load of 27 tf. After change of configuration, it can be manufactured as Type 4 bogie for heavy rolling stock or Type 1 bogie for high-speed models. For “smart” rail cars the bogie can be equipped with an electric power generator.