Current guidelines instruct engineers and managers how to manage rail wear across an industry with huge differences between the various heritage railway operations.

In order to ensure that suitable responsibility is taken by engineers and managers with respect to the safety of rail infrastructure, industry-wide guidelines are adhered to. These guidelines are in the form of group standards, and are focussed on usage across the mainline network (such as those detailed on the Existing Research page of this site). The extent to which these guidelines are found useful will be investigated as part of the industry survey.

For rail head-wear specifically, the prescribed levels of maximum side- and head-wear on rails are defined in sections 3.2.7 and 3.2.8 of Rail Group Standard GC/RT5021 (Track System Requirements). These values are designed to cover the entire mainline network, and rail wear is graded into three line designations: Lines with running speeds of less than 80mph; lines with running speeds of between 80mph and 125mph and lines with running speeds of over 125 mph.

As can be seen, all heritage lines (which are limited to run at no more than 25mph when in regular service) are covered by the first designation which covers lines with much higher traffic frequencies, dynamic tolerances and risk implications. It is clear, therefore, that the maximum rail wear prescribed for this designation must be an ineffectively conservative estimate of rail wear limits for heritage lines, resulting in a tendency for the guideline to be disregarded.

This project intends to conclude with recommendations regarding modifications or additions to the current guidelines, making them more useful on-site. This should have the effect of allowing managers and engineers to have a better understanding of their rail infrastructure, whilst increasing safety on heritage lines across the UK.