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Improve the reliability of locomotives

A.V. KARYAKIN, Deputy Head of the Locomotive Department of Russian Railways

Currently, due to the growing volume of traffic, the problem of ensuring the reliability of the locomotive fleet is coming to the fore. Unfortunately, not everything is going well here due to a number of objective and subjective reasons.

As you know, with the collapse of the USSR, factories for the construction of mainline freight locomotives remained outside Russia — the Tbilisi plant with a production capacity of up to 250 DC electric locomotives and the Lugansk plant with a production capacity of up to 750 diesel locomotives per year. In the Czech Republic, up to 40-50 passenger electric locomotives of the DC and AC series were purchased annually. A significant part of the component equipment, mainly electrical, was also produced in Ukraine and Latvia. All of the above made it possible to annually update up to 4.5% of the locomotive fleet. Currently, this indicator has decreased to 0.2%, which is clearly insufficient.

In connection with the above, a situation arose in which the shortage of new locomotives led to an increase in the rate of aging of the entire fleet. Thus, according to the All-Russian Scientific Research and Design Institute of VNIKTI (Kolomna), as of January 1, 2006, 45.9% of passenger and 24.1% of freight electric locomotives, 43.4% of freight and 48.6% of shunting locomotives had reached their set service life.

The forecast for the development of this situation is disappointing. By 2010, 67.8% of direct current and 35.4% of alternating current freight electric locomotives, 90.3% of mainline freight locomotives and 69% of shunting diesel locomotives will have reached their established service life. Fleet wear will reach 70% or more, which will negatively affect the operational reliability of the locomotives. The dominant direction in improving reliability, of course, is the renewal of the fleet. However, the construction of new locomotives requires significant costs and cannot be implemented in a short time.

Under the current conditions, the tasks of ensuring an increasing volume of transportation and optimizing operating costs are impossible without systematically improving the reliability of the existing fleet of locomotives through their rehabilitation at the factories of the Zheldorremmash Directorate.

Here is an overview of the locomotive depot — plant's complaint work based on the results of the first quarter of 2006 and compare individual positions with the same period in 2005.

DIESEL LOCOMOTIVES

The total number of claims against thermal and electrical repair plants for the poor quality of repairs increased from 156 in the first quarter of 2005 to 247 in the first quarter of 2006. The number of claims for diesel locomotives

The freight fleet increased from 76 to 172, and the number of TEM2 shunting locomotives increased from 18 to 32. The worst situation is at the Ussuriysky LRZ, where growth is allowed from 28 to 44, the Orenburg LRZ — from 21 to 37, the Astrakhan TRZ — from 4 to 13, the Ulan—Ude LVRZ - from 1 to 3. At the same time, the average duration of the period from the date of arrival of the locomotive at the depot after repair to the start of its operation is from Astrakhan TRZ — 22.4 days, Voronezh TRZ — 18.3 days, Orenburg TRZ — 11.6 days. As you know, downtime leads to an increase in the percentage of defective locomotives and an additional diversion of the fleet for repairs. Thus, the economic performance of the depot and the Company as a whole is deteriorating.

The largest number of claims were filed for equipment groups:

> diesel — 39.8% (100 out of 251), with the worst situation at the Ussuriysky LRZ, Orenburg LRZ, Voronezh TRZ. And at the Astrakhan TRZ, the number of claims due to diesel failures amounted to 71.4%. In the diesel group, the largest number of failures was detected due to malfunctions of the connecting rod and piston group. If, in general, failures in this group of nodes in all plants amounted to 15.6%, then at the Ussuriysk LRZ — 31.3%, at the Voronezh TRZ — 38.5% (cylinder set failures), and at the Astrakhan TRZ — 70.0 %;

> diesel air supply systems (turbochargers) — 4.7 % (12 out of 251). The worst situation at the Ussuriysk LRZ — 5 claims;

> mechanical equipment — 8,7 %. The worst situation at the Orenburg LRZ — 10 claims;

> cooling systems — in general, the percentage of claims is 17.7, and for the Orenburg LRZ — 30.8%.

The total amount of claims under the "Diesel and auxiliary equipment" column is 53.2%. At the same time, all the listed plants of the Zheldorremmash Directorate have been diesel locomotive repair plants with the same type of diesel production for many years. Thus, the rehabilitation of the diesel group, which is the main task of overhauling diesel locomotives in factories, is practically not provided.

The weak point of diesel locomotive repair plants is the repair of traction electrical equipment. As a result, the number of claims for TED failures was 15.9% (40 out of 251), and for traction generator failures — 6.7% (17 out of 251). None of the Directorate's plants has resolved the issues of ensuring the needs of locomotive depots for major repairs of traction generators.

Thus, up to 50 units of GP-311B traction generators of the TE10 series diesel locomotives are in operation on only one Far Eastern road with a run in the Kyrgyz Republic. However, the Ussuriysky LRZ does not have repair facilities for the rehabilitation of these traction electric machines and does not develop this production. As a result, the Department of Locomotive Engineering is forced to place orders for major repairs of traction electric machines at the Smelyansk EMZ of Ukraine.

AC ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES

The number of claims increased from 80 in the first quarter of 2005 to 175 in the first quarter of 2006. The worst situation at the Novosibirsk ERZ is an increase in the number of claims from 4 to 19, at the Rostov ERZ from 20 to 52, and at the Ulan—Ude LVRZ from 48 to 76.

For electric locomotives of the VL80 series (without VL80TK), which form the basis of the freight fleet, the number of claims increased from 58 to 96, and for passenger emergencies and EP1 the increase was from 23 to 44, i.e. almost 2 times.

The quality of repair of traction electric machines remains unsatisfactory. Thus, of the 177 claims filed against the plants, 56.5% (100) relate to failures of TED and auxiliary electrical machines. The worst situation is at the Ulan-Ude LVRZ (52 claims) and the Rostov ERZ (28 claims).

On all series of VL80 electric locomotives (except the VL80R), failures of auxiliary electric vehicles account for 30% or more. The largest number of complaints about the quality of repairs carried out is presented to Ulan-Ude LVRZ — 45% and Rostov ERZ — 28%.

After the completion of the extended service life (MLP) upgrade, which is aimed at improving the reliability of locomotives, VL80TK electric locomotives operate less steadily at the Ulan-Ude LVRZ than after the VL80 electric locomotives were repaired. The main equipment failures: 47.8% — TED failures, 30.4% — failures of auxiliary electrical machines.

DC ELECTRIC LOCOMOTIVES

The number of claims increased from 89 in the first quarter of 2005 to 177 in the first quarter of 2006 for all plants. The worst situation in the Yekaterinburg ERZ is an increase in claims from 17 to 55, Novosibirsk ERZ — from 3 to 14, Chelyabinsk ERZ — from 40 to 57, Yaroslavl ERZ — from 29 to 51.

The number of claims for electric locomotives in the freight fleet increased from 61 to 106, and for passenger trains of the emergency series — from 48 to 68.

The Chelyabinsk ERZ (36.6%) and Yekaterinburg ERZ (33.7%) have the largest number of complaints about the quality of repairs performed.

Just as in factories for the repair of AC electric locomotives, the quality of repair of traction electric machines remains low. Of the 170 claims, 122 (71.7%) were filed for failures of TED and auxiliary electrical machines. The worst situation is in the Chelyabinsk ERZ (59 claims) and the Yekaterinburg ERZ (41 claims).

For electric locomotives of all series of freight and passenger traffic, the most characteristic failures of TED are the penetration of grease into the armature cavity (up to 25% of all causes), breakdown and inter-turn armature closure (up to 30% of all causes). For electrical devices, up to 60% of all malfunctions are a breakdown of the insulation of the windings.

For all series of electric locomotives and diesel locomotives, the largest number of claims are made after CR and MLP — 65.3% of all types of repairs at factories. At the same time, up to 40% of faults in diesel locomotives and 20% of faults in electric locomotives are detected during a run of up to 10,000 km after factory repairs.
I would like to note separately that the "Dissenting opinions" of factory representatives on the claims are often biased and unrelated to the cause of the equipment failure.

Thus, a claim was made in case of a breakdown in the insulation of the output cable of the fourth traction engine of the VL10U electric locomotive No. 745 at the Volkhovstroy depot of the Oktyabrskaya Road with a locomotive mileage of 21 thousand km from the Kyrgyz Republic. The reason is obvious — poor-quality installation of putty in the cable connection during repair at the factory. The representative of the Chelyabinsk ERZ agrees with the conclusion, and the complaint act No. 5 dated 03/16/2006 is jointly signed. However, he makes up a "Special Opinion" that does not contribute anything to understanding the reasons and is a simple enumeration of already known facts.

A similar "Dissenting opinion" dated 03/31/2006 from a representative of the Yekaterinburg ERZ in case of a breakdown of the additional pole of the TL—2K-1 traction engine of the VL10 electric locomotive No. 111 of the same Volkhovstroy depot. The fault of the plant is also obvious, the representative signs the complaint act N9 6 with the wording "Substandard repairs at the Yekaterinburg ERZ". But in the "Dissenting Opinion" he concludes: "The electric locomotive was operated in a faulty condition (sand does not flow)." There is no causal relationship between these phenomena, everything is limited to the phrase "... eliminated for THAT-2".

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