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FRICTION MANAGEMENT

egy. As railroads started to learn the wheel-rail interaction better, we began to
see that there was some benefit from controlling the friction on the top of the
rail as well. That's when top-of-rail friction modifiers (TORFM) first became
available.

Typically, TORFM have always been applied with electronic-style lubricators
that there's no contact between the wheel and the activation device.

TORFM typically are applied in smaller doses and much more precisely than
curve lubricant. So, you need the electronic-type lubricator that allows you to
really fine-tune the output rate.

Back in the early days with the mechanical-type systems, every wheel pass
pumped grease. So you can imagine, trying to adjust them was much more diffi-
cult because you were literally going to get some output with every wheel pass;
whereas the electronic units that are around today, we can set them and have
them apply only as needed. There are wheel skips built into the control sys-
tems that allow you to only pump for example every six wheels, every eight
wheels, every 24 wheels, depending on how much you need to coat the specific
area. The application art has come a long way in the last 25 years!

How many accidents of derailments would you say lubrication friction management prevent each year?
We don't really have any insight into that. There's clear evidence that the chance for derailments is reduced by keep-
ing the gauge face adequately lubricated. But as far as any kind of statistics that would show the difference between
lubricated and non-lubricated, we don't really have access to any of that kind of information.
What has the market been like? Has the coronavirus turned wrenches into your plans?

We would have to say it’s affected everyone. We can't say any specific projects that have been delayed or canceled
because of the pandemic. The consumable business tends to follow the rail traffic. Obviously, if traffic is down the con-
sumption of the consumable part of it—be it curve lubricant or a top-of-rail friction modifier—that consumption rate
goes down. Usage goes up and down depending on the traffic. So, you're generally going to see a drop any time the
traffic drops.
As far as equipment, at this point the market is more of a replacement market. It's not like there's miles and miles of
new lines being built. It typically is upgrades of existing lines, and it's very common for new application equipment to
be part of new rail programs. A lot of times the wayside equipment is part of the budget for a new rail project. It's
stable, but I wouldn't call it a growing market; it’s more of a replacement market from the equipment side.
The biggest growth area we see going forward is the maintenance of the equipment. As I said, each railroad has their
own individual strategy but trying to maximize the uptime of the equipment that they do have is the key. Some do it
entirely with their own railroad forces, and some use service providers like Loram to maintain and fill all their units.
And then there are other railroads that have a mix; they may have some areas where they use their own employees,
other areas where they have a service provider do it.

We also have cases where at certain times of the year, like when the track maintenance is going strong, the railroads
can't always keep up with pulling equipment out of track and then putting it back in. So, they will ask us to help them
with removals and re-installations of equipment kind of on an as-needed basis. There's no right or wrong answer; eve-
ry railroad has its own individual strategy.
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