An Investigation of Short Pitch Wheel and Rail Corrugations on the Vancouver Mass Transit System

Abstract

Shortly after opening, the Vancouver mass transit system experienced severe rail and wheel corrugation problems. Poor alignment of wheelsets in trucks, generation of ‘roll-slip’ oscillations between wheel and rail and the development of close conformity between the wheel tread and the rail were judged to be associated with the development of corrugations. Remedies included reducing the tolerance on wheelset misalignment to ±10 minutes of arc, applying a friction modifier to wheels to change the friction characteristic between wheel tread and rail from negative to positive, regauging the track and grinding the rail to different profiles in each of the four equal sections of tangent track. These remedies have virtually eliminated corrugation from the system.