Pandrol Experience of High Speed Rail Fastenings

The Pandrol FASTCLIP System is the rail fastening which holds the current world rail speed record under a TGV train, in France set on 3 April 2007 at 575 kph. (357 mph)

This amazing speed record was set during the commissioning of the route between Paris and Strasbourg, using fastenings designed and supplied by Pandrol from the UK. This was not a ‘flash in the pan’; it was the result of continuous improvements and research over 40 years, and highlights the experience of Pandrol as the premier global supplier of rail fastening technologies.

High Speed rail expertise has been developed by Pandrol for over 40 years, starting from the Shinkansen projects in Japan, followed by TGV projects in France, and gradually expanding around the world.  The early adopters have now been joined by: Germany, Italy, Spain, Korea, and more recently in China, with other countries moving towards ever higher speeds, even if the line speeds of the highest are not copied.

In most cases the early forms of high speed track have used traditional ballast track developed and refined for higher speed, but as the market developed it became understood that ballast had limitations and disadvantages in relation to maintenance time and costs. This has led to the development of concrete slab track (often referred to as ‘ballastless’). It has now been decided that HS2 will adopt slab track over the first section of HS2 to Birmingham, and this will cover both the ‘at grade’ sections and the tunneled lengths of the route.

Pandrol has supplied many high speed railways around the world, and has developed expertise and components, which have been exported to: Italy, Belgium, Japan, France, Spain, Korea and China.

The growing recognition of the reduced maintenance costs for slab track has led to Pandrol customers in Japan, China, and Korea to adopt significant lengths of slab track, and Pandrol has been alongside these customers developing rail fastening solutions for a wide range of track environments.

Between China and Korea, Pandrol has supplied over 5.5 million rail seats, many of these on slab track formation, and this subject will form the next article in this series relating High Speed rail applications.

If you wish to know about Pandrol solutions to High Speed rail projects, there is a wealth of material of the Pandrol website, or on the Pandrol LinkedIn profile. Alternatively readers can contact me using my LinkedIn private message service.