Cross Wind Protection Systems for High Speed Railway Lines

Higher operating rail speeds and lighter rolling stock means that cross wind, a factor that had not been considered for railway operations until recent times, has acquired vital importance in keeping adequate safety levels for railway transport of passengers. The overturn risk for a train circulating on a high speed line is determined by three key issues: • TRAIN: its aerodynamic and dynamic characteristics. • LINE: radius, azimuth, type of infrastructure, etc. • WIND: speed and angle with the train: – Wind statistics at the cross wind detection stations. – Wind models with spatial extrapolation for estimating average and actual wind on each section of the line. – Temporal forecast models at the cross wind detection stations. The combination of a certain rail line and a specific vehicle allows the determination of the criticality of each site. Once the authoritative safety target has been defined, according to this overturn risk, the adequate operating procedures must be defined. There are three possible types of protection systems: • Passive protection: protection walls or wind screens. • Active protection: short term (minutes) wind alert systems that impose restrictions to train speed when strong cross wind conditions are predicted. • Special procedures to regulate railway traffic under critical wind conditions. This paper presented hereby describes the studies to determine the susceptible sections to be protected, focus afterwards, specifically on active protection systems themselves, and main actions for its implementation.