Maintenance, Expansion – Railways Face Rising Costs

An innovative hi-tech robotic solution makes it possible to retain welding skills, and allow for flexible maintenance and network cost planning

The United Nations projects the global population will reach 9.7 billion people in 2050 with 68 per cent living in urban areas – and the projected form of travel will be the greener, less polluting, railways option. However, many rail company revenues were hit hard during the Covid-19 lockdown and today face increasing pressure on the maintenance, efficiencies and on the network expansion front.

In 2022, the European Commission estimated on average the rail sector spends €39,600 (£35,000) per kilometre of track on rail maintenance equating to 38 per cent of total operating expenses. Upskilling welders to maximise Flex e.bot technology seems like a no brainer for rail operators and upskilling can only be to the benefit of the welder through the ability to add value and enhance career prospects and hence job security.

This will come as no surprise to the railways industries worldwide but laying new track means a lot of welding while existing track, crossings, and heads, also need hardfacing maintenance against excessive wear.

Capital investment and increased maintenance costs will play a large part in the decision processes of these rail companies in the coming years. Utilising the right hardfacing welding technology will be key.

And an added headache for the railways is the welding trade is suffering from a lack of career uptake. Welding is no longer appealing to young people despite being a sought-after skill. This developing skills shortage is most likely due to negative perceptions of the profession including the health effects on the welder – toxic fumes, stressful welding positions, and the like.

Faced with this, Welding Alloys developed an innovative solution making it possible to attract and retain welders and keep in-house welding skills by reducing their exposure to toxic fumes and physical stress. The solution is Flex e.bot, a collaborative robot (Cobot) solution allowing hardfacing welding in direct collaboration with the welder.

The Flex e.bot offers real positional comfort to the welder, peace of mind by keeping them away from welding fumes while freeing them from binding tasks and allowing welders to focus on more valuable activities’ said Welding Alloys Bastien Gerard. ‘Safety and time are paramount in all rail operations and the replacement of tracks and crossings is costly and time consuming. The Cobot solution meets the need to balance retaining skills to extend the life of networks set against efficiencies and costs.

In order to retain flexibility, the welder can regain control at any time by disconnecting the welding torch of the Cobot to perform manual operations (pointing, retouching, finishing, etc.). We understand transportation is the backbone of many countries and is based on the ability to maintain and operate an efficient and economically viable railway system. The question for railway networks now is how to meet expectations in construction and maintenance and reduce costs? The answer is easy-use integrated technology like the Flex e.bot. With this Cobot solution it is no longer about complicated machine programming, instead it just takes a few clicks to define the area to be hard faced and the welding technique, direction and inclination. Saves time and time is money.

Welding Alloys solutions are designed and developed to address specific customer needs, based on data obtained from the industry for over 50 years. Knowledge, experience, equipment, and an extensive range of welding consumables offers the flexibility to repair tracks and crossings, resulting in significantly increased lifespan of these components with substantial overall cost savings.

Welding Alloys offers economical solutions to wear problems caused by skidding, metal smearing, braking, wheel spin and impact, material deformation, cornering, and general abrasion. Then there is the Cobot cost-saving solution, Flex e.bot, future tech available today.

Technology such as the Cobot certainly creates a better work environment and, as such, can be a factor in encouraging young people to realise welding is no longer the low-paid dirty job of old. But innovation alone will not attract young people in the numbers needed by industry. There is an ever growing shortage of welders and industry itself needs to take the lead in recruitment through apprenticeships and supporting training centres and being proactive at school career events. Technologies like the Cobot can only support these efforts, in my opinion.

Cobot technology is a leap-forward in response to customer demand for more productive equipment, better safety for the welder, and for more precision and greater reliability.

Artificial Intelligence in itself will not attract young people to welding. It is a combination of access to apprenticeships and training and promoting the fact new technologies mean it’s clean, safe and a wellpaid career. In my opinion industry has been recklessly complacent for decades and we need to reach out to our youth proactively to be able to meet the growing demand for welders. Welding is no longer the low paid dirty job many people imagine. That is the real message we need to get across to young people today.

The current new technologies are developed in response to customer demand for greater safety, lower costs and to speed up production. Automation and increasingly AI is the accepted way to do this. A true disrupter is revolutionary, an approach or technology that sweeps aside accepted practices or equipment. Think along the lines the lines of the scribe versus the typewriter versus the personal computer versus the laptop versus the cell phone. Each one is a real disrupter and changed the way the world works today. These weren’t progressions, they were revolutionary, true disrupters.