Sometimes, a new railroad product that’s a bit different from “business as usual” will encounter resistance. Here’s how one supplier stayed the course and earned acceptance.
Roller bearing failures are the third-largest cause of derailments on U.S. railways, following only broken rails and track irregularities. According to a 2012 University of Illinois study, bearing failures caused 257 U.S. derailments between 2001 and 2010, with more than 1,700 cars coming off the rails.
“This leads to millions of dollars in Loss & Damage claims and cleanup and track repair costs, plus the cost of repairing and replacing wheelsets and other running gear—not to mention the injuries or loss of life that sometimes result from a derailment,” according to Stage 8 Locking Fasteners Inc. Director and Executive Vice President Robert J. Ahern. Such derailments frequently happen because roller bearing end-cap screws, which maintain proper compression in the bearing, vibrate loose after tens of thousands of miles of service.
Stage 8 Locking Fasteners, a major supplier of fastening systems to the aerospace (NASA), automotive/motorsports, and heavy equipment industries as well as the U.S. military, offers what it believes is a 100% effective solution to this problem: the Cap Screw Locking System, which is designed to prevent freight car roller bearing end-cap screws from vibrating loose. “Lab and field tests have proven that our system is 100% effective in preventing roller bearing end-cap screws from coming loose, helping to prevent derailments caused by these types of failures,” says Ahern. “Our technology more than pays for itself for a simple economic reason: It’s far less expensive to install our Cap Screw Locking System on each wheelset of a railcar than to pay for the cost of wheelset replacement after the screws vibrate loose. “In 2010, the railroad industry spent $223 million to repair and replace wheelsets and roller bearings that experienced failures caused by end-cap screw loosening. Our analysis indicates that if our product were installed on every new freight car in the U.S. over a seven-year rollout period, the rail industry would save nearly $1.1 billion from bearing failures that won’t occur.”
Stage 8 has obtained conditional approval from the Association of American Railroads for the Cap Screw Locking System. Approval followed “a lengthy and frequently problematic evaluation” by the AAR Wheels, Axles, Bearings, & Lubrication (WABL) Committee, according to Ahern. “Our technology offers the twin benefits of enhanced railway safety and cost-reduction. The rail industry has been well aware of the problem of end-cap screws vibrating loose. The best locking system the industry has been able to devise still allows a failure rate of 23%, meaning nearly one out of every four wheel repairs is caused by loosening screws and loss of clamp. This is unacceptable.”
Typically, says Ahern, “the roller bearings themselves were blamed. Conventional wisdom said that the material inside the bearings was breaking down, causing end-cap screws to lose their clamp and vibrate loose. This type of thinking did not address what we know is the true root cause of many bearing-related wheelset failures—loose end-cap screws. That’s why we devised a better system in 2009.”
All new products marketed to the nation’s freight railroads must receive approval from the AAR and its specialized technical committees. “We wound up having to overcome a very high technical hurdle,” Ahern notes. “This was lengthy field test of our Cap Screw Locking System. We’re pleased to report that, during 150,000 miles of revenue service testing, our locking system experienced no failures—not one end-cap screw loosened. The test was a complete success.”
While Stage 8 is pleased that the AAR has granted conditional approval, it believes the approval process was far too lengthy. Such experiences in the long run “could discourage other innovative new parts suppliers from introducing new products that could improve safety,” says Ahern. “As such, legislative help may be needed.”
“The U.S. Congress should consider adopting legislation that would enable the Federal Railroad Administration to more-effectively vet new or improved technology—even if it comes from suppliers who are new to the industry and, like us, encounter some resistance—that would prevent bearing failures, decouplings, and other accidents,” says Ahern. “This would enable railroads to adopt any technology that meets performance standards and improves system safety. Not only would persistent problems that have long-dogged the railroad industry be significantly reduced or even eliminated, safety would improve, the cost of derailment-related repairs and cleanup following a derailment would be reduced, and the railroad industry would benefit from its trains operating more efficiently. “This is what I would call common-sense legislation.”