Application examples from railway technology

Overview of success stories with products from the areas of passenger transport, goods transport and infrastructure

Reliable boarding systems. When travelling by tram or train, passengers encounter the first igus® components as soon as they board. chainflex® cable, dryspin® lead screw technology and energy supply are used to operate boarding systems in a maintenance-free and, above all, reliable manner.

maintenance-free and clean applications in the passenger compartment. iglidur® Polymer plain bearings and drylin® linear guide ensure clean adjustment, low coefficient of friction and low-noise movements without additional lubricant. This is made possible by the dry lubricants incorporated in the igus® materials.

Motion plastic is used from the driver's cab to the brakes. Control elements for operating trains and trams also benefit from the specifications of motion plastic. drylin® linear guides are used in brake levers, for example. For high wear resistance, bearing points in control panels and emergency brakes are equipped with iglidur® G plain bearings. The brakes themselves are also equipped with iglidur® plain bearings, as they are corrosion-free and enable perfect functioning in the event of impacts and dirt.

CF9.UL tram with doors open at the platform.

Space-saving light rail doors with cable and energy chain

Developing compact passenger doors for new light rail vehicles on the Metro del Valles line in Barcelona: This is the job of the Spanish company Masats. The engineers are using chainflex® control cable and e-chain® in the opening mechanisms of the doors. Thanks to their special design, the control cables make it possible to work with an extremely small bend radius of just 20 millimetres. The cables are therefore ideal for passenger doors, which are among the most space-saving systems on the market.

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E-scooter lift for public transport with information and service monitors in Deutsche Bahn’s Ideenzug.

Idea train: Linear bearing for e-scooter lift at Deutsche Bahn

The Ideenzug is a Deutsche Bahn initiative dedicated to the passenger transport of tomorrow. One of the concepts developed: an e-scooter lift for space-saving suspension and charging of the scooters during the train journey. The two-wheelers are hooked into a holder and can be moved up and down electrically on a linear axis. This is where drylin® linear tables with drive for lubrication-free operation come into play.

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Two people stand beside a dryspin solution for bridging a gap in a machine opening.

drylin® Screw drives keep gap bridging in trains in motion

Sliding steps must function in all weathers and be safe so that passengers with pushchairs or limited mobility can get on and off the train independently. The central components of a new development from Knorr-Bremse GmbH, Division IFE are lubricant-free and therefore maintenance-free dryspin® high helix lead screw and lead screw nut from igus®. They are resistant to corrosion and media and ensure a long service life - at significantly reduced costs.

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Train door with visible linear bearings and guide elements.

Maintenance-free shaft guide in high-speed train doors

These high-speed trains travel at speeds of up to 350 km/h between Beijing and Shanghai. The outer doors are guided by shaft guides from the drylin® R series. The advantage: The sliding foils of the linear bearings are made of lubrication- and maintenance-free iglidur®. The bearings also run particularly quietly and work reliably even in the sometimes adverse weather conditions.

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Rail wash system for a train with sensors and a Smart Plastics component.

Predictive maintenance in train wash

The train washing system of the Société Nationale des Chemins de Fer Luxembourgeois (CFL) cleans local and long-distance trains every day in its 200 metre long washing hall. Several energy chains are used together with intelligent sensor technology to ensure that the washing trolleys move on both sides of a train, monitoring the status of the system and planning predictive maintenance.

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Transfer table for a train in a railway facility.

Safe movement of the transfer table

This transfer table in the port of Felixstowe in England ensures that the locomotives are quickly moved to the correct one of the eight tracks. Locomotives weighing up to 170 tonnes are pushed over a distance of up to 30 metres. To ensure that the cables from the control unit to the transfer table are routed safely over the long term, even in the extreme weather conditions and salty air in the harbour, and to keep maintenance times to a minimum, the operators opted for a flizz® system from igus® made of stainless steel, in which an e-chain® from the E4 series and chainflex® cables are used.

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drylin guide system on a road-rail vehicle shown in technical section view.

lubrication-free linear bearing with high rigidity in the tunnel cleaning vehicle

Zweiweg International has developed a two-way cleaning vehicle for the metro in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which is characterised by particularly flexible cleaning technology. Linear systems from our construction kit also contribute to this. The lubrication- and maintenance-free linear technology is compact when retracted and still allows a long extension length without yielding too much under the high water pressure. As they are lubrication-free, dirt and dust also have no influence.

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Cross-section of a damper with internal components and piston rod in two views.

Test system for train rails

They thunder over the rails at over 300 km/h: high-speed trains. Even the smallest cracks in the rails can become a safety risk. In order to detect such defects, the Turkish company Burak Cevik is building a testing system that travels along the rails. Linear bearings made of high-performance plastic from igus® are used at the bearing points. The polymer bearings function for many years without lubricants. They are also resistant to dusty and damp environments as well as fluctuating temperatures.