The chair groups Plant Physiology and Mathematical and Statistical Methods (Biometris) of Wageningen University have for four years been involved in research into slippery train rails in the Netherlands. In the so-called ADREM project of NS (Dutch railways) and ProRail various disciplines from various universities (TUDelft, University Twente and Wageningen University) conducted research into the problems caused by slippery train rails.
Main problem at the start of the project was the lack of suitable measuring equipment for research on railways. This is why Wageningen University has developed a detector that can analyse the spectrum (the 'colour') of the rail surface. This makes it possible to detect any material on the rail that may cause slipperiness.
After a number of test measurements a spectral camera unit was built into a special train that has been running in the Netherlands in the autumn of 2008 to perform measurements on the railway lines. The fact that the same train has also been fitted with a device for measuring slipperiness (developed by University Twente) made it possible to investigate the relationship between spectra and slipperiness. The spectrum allowed prediction of slipperiness for three of the studied locations.
NS and Prorail stated that the research has taken them a good step further because the new measuring equipment enables them to perform relevant measurements on the railway system.