Railway operator Northern and the University of Sheffield have demonstrated a cleaning system technology that can be mounted on passenger trains to remove leaves from tracks. The cleaning system, developed by researchers from the University’s Department of Mechanical Engineering, works by firing dry ice pellets in a stream of air at supersonic speed at the railhead, freezing any leaves on the line. The frozen leaves are then blasted away as the dry ice pellets turn back into a gas. The trials with Northern are being run with funding from Network Rail’s Performance Innovation Fund. The researchers have bought two retired Pacer trains, based at Wensleydale Railway, to test the new design and develop a plan for the system to be fitted throughout Northern’s fleet next year.
