Advanced Rail Management awarded rail grinding contract on Calgary Transit’s system

Advanced Rail Management (Canada) Inc. (ARM), a Global Rail Trust company, has been awarded a contract by the city of Calgary for rail grinding services on the Calgary Transit light-rail system. The one-year contract has four option years.

ARM will review the existing conditions and develop and execute a rail grinding program to remove corrugation, surface cracking and gradually restore the design rail profile on open and tunnel mainline track, including the at-grade embedded track sections in the downtown area on the Blue and Red Lines across system’s 120 kilometers (74.6 miles).

ARM will measure and analyze rail roughness, corrugation, wear and surface defects on the system. From that, it will develop and supervise the grinding program through onsite field management to optimize track time and metal removal rates for the grinding program. The plan is to address the Blue and Red Lines alternately each year.

ARM will provide the rail grinding equipment along with field supervision and quality control of the grinding unit to ensure that the desired rail profile and surface conditions are achieved.

“We will select the appropriate grinding patterns to minimize the required grinding effort,” said ARM Chief Technical Officer Mark Riemer. “We will also perform post-grinding measurement and inspection to validate the post-grind rail roughness and corrugation levels.”

ARM will also train and work with Calgary Transit’s in-house grinding crews on the use of hand tools to properly assess rail profile and on pattern selection and grinding techniques to remove corrugation and achieve the desired rail profile with the least amount of grinding effort.