LIRR cleaning rails of leaves using Laser

[tgstubbs1]

I saw this on the web and wonder if other railroads have looked into this technology?

"New York’s Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) has struggled for years with decaying leaves on the line during what its president Phillip Eng calls “low-adhesion season.” Trains can struggle to accelerate or stop on the rails' slick surfaces, sometimes locking their brakes and squaring off their wheels, which forces them to be removed from service for repairs. As the busiest commuter railway in the United States, the LIRR can’t afford delays or service interruptions and has adopted a novel solution to its traction problems: Burn the rails clean with powerful lasers."

"LIRR president Phillip Eng reported that train cancellations through November 2019 have fallen 48 percent year-over-year versus 2018, and that frequency of lighter, but less capacious, ridership-reducing "short trains" is down 32 percent. Delays are down too: 90.7 percent of trains were on time in November 2019, an improvement of 3.8 percent over the year prior, and delays of 15 minutes or more are down 30 percent. Weather-related delays as a whole shrank 65 percent...."


https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...ay-on-schedule?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

 

[PVD]

Eng moved on and is at the helm of the MBTA in Mass now. He probably wishes he could use the lasers on some of the people that work for him now.

 

[MARC Rider]

I saw this on the web and wonder if other railroads have looked into this technology?

"New York’s Long Island Rail Road (LIRR) has struggled for years with decaying leaves on the line during what its president Phillip Eng calls “low-adhesion season.” Trains can struggle to accelerate or stop on the rails' slick surfaces, sometimes locking their brakes and squaring off their wheels, which forces them to be removed from service for repairs. As the busiest commuter railway in the United States, the LIRR can’t afford delays or service interruptions and has adopted a novel solution to its traction problems: Burn the rails clean with powerful lasers."

"LIRR president Phillip Eng reported that train cancellations through November 2019 have fallen 48 percent year-over-year versus 2018, and that frequency of lighter, but less capacious, ridership-reducing "short trains" is down 32 percent. Delays are down too: 90.7 percent of trains were on time in November 2019, an improvement of 3.8 percent over the year prior, and delays of 15 minutes or more are down 30 percent. Weather-related delays as a whole shrank 65 percent...."


https://getpocket.com/explore/item/...ay-on-schedule?utm_source=pocket-newtab-en-us

So how does this work? I watched the videos and couldn't figure out whether the laser was burning off the leaves or just drying the rail.

 

[PVD]

So how does this work? I watched the videos and couldn't figure out whether the laser was burning off the leaves or just drying the rail.

this is how the process is described in a different article (from 10 years ago), a bit clearer


Last month, Dutch Railways began trials to zap leaves into oblivion with lasers. Angled downwards and fitted just in front of a wheel, the lasers vaporise built-up residue as the train passes. They also dry the rails to prevent new leaves from piling up. This gives trains better traction, allowing faster acceleration and braking