Wear of pantograph collector strips

The overhead conductor system (OCS) could be one of the most economical and feasible engineering solutions to the problem of how to transmit electrical energy to intercity trains (typically at 25 kV AC) or urban/suburban trains (typically at 1.5 kV DC) along open or tunnel routes. However, the consumption of contact wire and collector strips due to wear and tear could impose a severe cost on the railway operator should the interaction between the wear couple formed by the OCS and the pantograph be poor. Following the completion of several OCS improvement projects, this paper examines the factors that might have led to higher than expected consumption of collector strips by analysing statistical data from an operational railway. The observations so far are that irregular contact wire height relative to the rails and high ambient humidity have been identified as two of the many factors that led to the abnormal consumption of collector strips. © IMechE 2008.