Flange-bearing frog
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A flange-bearing frog, often abbreviated FBF, is a type of
frog A frog is any member of a diverse and largely Carnivore, carnivorous group of short-bodied, tailless amphibians composing the order (biology), order Anura (ανοὐρά, literally ''without tail'' in Ancient Greek). The oldest fossil "proto-f ...
in which the
flange A flange is a protruded ridge, lip or rim (wheel), rim, either external or internal, that serves to increase shear strength, strength (as the flange of an iron beam (structure), beam such as an I-beam or a T-beam); for easy attachment/transfer of ...
of the
wheel A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...
on a
railway Rail transport (also known as train transport) is a means of transport that transfers passengers and goods on wheeled vehicles running on rails, which are incorporated in tracks. In contrast to road transport, where the vehicles run on a pre ...
vehicle A vehicle (from la, vehiculum) is a machine that transports people or cargo. Vehicles include wagons, bicycles, motor vehicles (motorcycles, cars, trucks, buses, mobility scooters for disabled people), railed vehicles (trains, trams), wa ...
supports the weight of the vehicle. In conventional practice, the tread of the wheel rests on the head of the rail and bears the weight of the vehicle, while the flange is used to keep the vehicle in the
gauge Gauge ( or ) may refer to: Measurement * Gauge (instrument), any of a variety of measuring instruments * Gauge (firearms) * Wire gauge, a measure of the size of a wire ** American wire gauge, a common measure of nonferrous wire diameter, es ...
of the
track Track or Tracks may refer to: Routes or imprints * Ancient trackway, any track or trail whose origin is lost in antiquity * Animal track, imprints left on surfaces that an animal walks across * Desire path, a line worn by people taking the shorte ...
. Modern flange-bearing frogs for use in freight railroad applications are a relatively recent development as a means to reduce maintenance costs associated with turnouts and
diamonds Diamond is a solid form of the element carbon with its atoms arranged in a crystal structure called diamond cubic. Another solid form of carbon known as graphite is the chemically stable form of carbon at room temperature and pressure, b ...
, where rails must cross one another.


History

Flange-bearing frogs have been used by
street railway A tram (called a streetcar or trolley in North America) is a rail vehicle that travels on tramway tracks on public urban streets; some include segments on segregated right-of-way. The tramlines or networks operated as public transport are ...
s for more than 200 years as a means of reducing noise pollution in populated urban settings.Barkan, Dr. Christopher. ''CEE 408 - Railway Transportation Engineering, Class Notes''. University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 2011. Print. In 1995, Robert Willow filed a
patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
in the
United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territorie ...
adapting this concept for use in mainline freight and passenger service. The patent describes the technology as, "designed to support a railroad wheel to roll through the frog on its flange rather than requiring its tread to jump across a flangeway gap."


Design

Ramps are placed on either side of the frog to gradually transition the wheel load from the tread (known as tread-bearing loading mode) to the flange (known as flange-bearing loading mode) and to lift the wheel so that the tread is completely clear of the rail.Willow, R. (1996). U.S. Patent No. 5,531,409. Washington, DC: U.S.


Advantages over conventional frogs

Conventional frogs require a gap of around in the running surface of the rail to allow adequate clearance for the flange of a railroad wheel. When a wheel in tread-bearing mode encounters this gap at high speed, it generates high
dynamic loading Dynamic loading is a mechanism by which a computer program can, at run time, load a library (or other binary) into memory, retrieve the addresses of functions and variables contained in the library, execute those functions or access those varia ...
(particularly
impact Impact may refer to: * Impact (mechanics), a high force or shock (mechanics) over a short time period * Impact, Texas, a town in Taylor County, Texas, US Science and technology * Impact crater, a meteor crater caused by an impact event * Impact ...
loading) on the edge of the rail at the gap.Judge, Tom
"A flange-bearing frog concept for heavy rail freight operations - rail crossings track - Vehicle Track Systems Newsletter"
''Railway Age''. June 1995. Print, web.
The repeated application of this impact leads to significant metal fatigue and eventual failure of the frog components, which translate directly to increased maintenance costs, train delays to allow for repairs, and an overall reduced lifespan for the frog and the track structure.Armstrong, M. (2010, May 14). ''Overview of Flange-Bearing Frogs''. Presentation given at semiweekly William W. Hay Railroad Engineering Seminar, University of Illinois, Urbana, IL. Because the flange rides on a continuous surface in a fully flange-bearing mode, the impact loads generated by the flangeway gap of conventional frogs are eliminated. This reduces maintenance and extends the life of the frog, which leads to an operational cost savings that exceeds the increase in initial costs, when compared to conventional frogs. As previously mentioned, flange-bearing frogs are quieter than conventional frogs—again, because of the reduced impact loads—which provides a potential benefit when implemented near residential areas.


Types of flange-bearing applications

Several types of flange-bearing frogs have been developed for specific applications on North American railroads. These frogs may be flange-bearing in one or both legs of the frog, and may by used either as part of a turnout or as part of a diamond.


Lift or jump frog

Lift frogs are used in turnouts where the through (straight) route is heavily used, and the diverging (curved) route is only used on occasion and at low speed. The frog is tread-bearing, with a normal rail surface, on the through route, and is flange-bearing on the diverging route. The name is derived from the wheel on the diverging rail being lifted over the through rail. No
guard rail Guard rail, guardrails, or protective guarding, in general, are a boundary feature and may be a means to prevent or deter access to dangerous or off-limits areas while allowing light and visibility in a greater way than a fence. Common shapes ...
is required on the through route, but is critical on the diverging route to keep rail vehicles in gauge. Common applications are set-out tracks or lightly used industry tracks (both of which are special types of sidings diverging from high-speed, high-tonnage mainlines.)


Combination tread- and flange-bearing frog

Combination tread- and flange-bearing frogs are used in turnouts and are designed to account for various stages of wheel wear (in which the tread of the wheel will wear thin, effectively increasing the flange height): *When the frog is new, all wheels will cross the frog in a fully flange-bearing mode, with no contact between tread and frog. *As the frog is used, the flangeway will abrade against the wheel flanges and deepen. In this case, new wheels (those with shorter flanges) will make contact between tread and frog, creating a combination tread- and flange-bearing loading on the frog. Meanwhile, worn wheels (those with taller flanges) will continue to impart a fully flange-bearing loading onto the frog. *As the frog continues to be used, the flangeway will deepen further until new wheels will cross the frog in a fully tread-bearing mode, while worn wheels will cross the frog in a combination tread- and flange-bearing mode. It is worth noting that as the tread-bearing loading environments begin to manifest themselves, the same impact loads which cause trouble with conventional frogs will return. They are almost exclusively found in
rail yards A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...
, where rail vehicles operate at or below , due to the reduction of guidance keeping the vehicles in the gauge through the turnout.


One-way low-speed diamonds

One-way low-speed diamond frogs are used in diamond crossings, often referred to as OWLS diamonds. These types of frogs are analogous to lift frogs in turnouts: the higher-trafficked line crosses the diamond on a normal rail surface in tread-bearing mode, and the lower-trafficked line crosses over the higher-trafficked line in flange-bearing mode. Because there is no flangeway gap to cross on the higher-trafficked line, vehicles using this line can cross the diamonds at the maximum speed allowed by the track design. Because the lower-trafficked line is in a situation where gauge restraint is reduced and because it has to cross over the flangeway gap for the higher-trafficked line, vehicles using this line are limited to speeds at or below . OWLS diamonds are commonly used where a rail line with very little traffic operating at low speed crosses a rail line with considerably more traffic operating at higher speeds.Clark, D., O'Connor, T., and Davis, D. (2008). Update on the Use of Flange-Bearing Technology in Special Trackwork. Annual Conference of American Railway Engineers and Maintenance-of-Way Association. Retrieved November 17, 2011, from http://www.arema.org/files/library/2008_Conference_Proceedings/Update_on_the_Use_of_Flange_Bearing_Technology_in_Special_Trackwork_2008.pdf


Full flange-bearing diamonds

Full flange-bearing diamond frogs are also used in diamond crossings. These frogs are flange-bearing for both lines through the diamond. Because both lines are flange-bearing, there is no need to elevate the flanges of vehicles using one line, as there is in the case of OWLS diamond frogs, which allows for greater gauge restraint. Consequently, vehicles can cross these frogs at the maximum speed allowed by the track design; regardless of which line on which they cross the diamond. Though there are very few of these in use today, full flange-bearing diamonds can be found where two high-speed or high-tonnage main lines must cross one another at-grade.


Regulatory landscape

In an effort to regulate the depth of flangeways in a crossing frog, the US
Federal Railroad Administration The Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is an agency in the United States Department of Transportation (DOT). The agency was created by the Department of Transportation Act of 1966. The purpose of the FRA is to promulgate and enforce rail saf ...
(FRA) created rules which, by definition, prohibited (in the United States) the use of flange-bearing frogs on track with speed limits greater than .''Track Safety Standards Compliance Manual''. Federal Railroad Administration, 2009. Print, Web
Track Safety Standards Compliance Manual
Because of this, an FRA
waiver A waiver is the voluntary relinquishment or surrender of some known right or privilege. Regulatory agencies of state departments or the federal government may issue waivers to exempt companies from certain regulations. For example, a United St ...
is required to install full flange-bearing diamonds. Subsequent to installation, an extensive battery of inspections of both the diamond itself, and rail vehicles which cross the diamond, to ensure that safety is not compromised by the installation of such a diamond.Cerny, Louis
"New Federal Railroad Administration waiver allows unlimited number of flange-bearing frog crossing diamonds to be installed."
''Railway Track and Structures''. January 12, 2011. Print, web.
This may change, as FBF becomes a proven technology, but the rigorous inspections are a deterrent for widespread installation of full flange-bearing diamonds.


Implementation

*
BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is one of the largest freight railroads in North America. One of seven North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 35,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and nearly 8,000 locomotives. It has three transcontinental routes that ...
had installed more than 100 lift frogs across their system, with plans to install many more. *In September 2009, BNSF installed three combination tread- and flange-bearing frogs in their
Lafayette, Louisiana Lafayette (, ) is a city in the U.S. state of Louisiana, and the most populous city and parish seat of Lafayette Parish, located along the Vermilion River. It is Louisiana's fourth largest incorporated municipality by population and the 234th- ...
yard. Since installation, the frogs have worn as described above, and there is evidence that some wheels already cross the frog in a combination tread- and flange-bearing mode. * BNSF had installed 22 OWLS diamonds on its system;
CSX CSX Transportation , known colloquially as simply CSX, is a Class I freight railroad operating in the Eastern United States and the Canadian provinces of Ontario and Quebec. The railroad operates approximately 21,000 route miles () of track. ...
had installed 13. *In 2006, CSX installed a full flange-bearing diamond at Shelby, Ohio, the first application of this technology on a North American freight railroad. In 2008, BNSF Railway installed two such diamonds at Moorhead, Minnesota. Both installations are under FRA-mandated inspection, as described above.


Results

Though tests are still ongoing, results in both controlled environments and revenue service are promising. The
Transportation Technology Center The Transportation Technology Center (TTC) is a railroad equipment testing and training facility located northeast of Pueblo, Colorado, owned by the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). It was built in 1971 as the High Speed Ground Test Center ...
in
Pueblo, Colorado Pueblo () is a List of municipalities in Colorado#Home rule municipality, home rule municipality that is the county seat and the List of municipalities in Colorado, most populous municipality of Pueblo County, Colorado, Pueblo County, Colorado ...
, has installed an OWLS diamond on their property, where they perform research for various railroad entities. Their results show that dynamic loads from a train crossing an OWLS diamond are half the loads from the same train crossing a conventional diamond at half the speed it crossed the OWLS diamond.Davis, D. (2009). ''Low-Impact Special Trackwork Research at Transportation Technology Center, Inc.''. Presentation given at the annual conference of the Transportation Research Board, Washington, DC. The inspections of both track and vehicles by BNSF and CSX at their full flange-bearing diamonds have shown no unexpected wear, and suggest that such diamonds could be implemented on a larger scale.


See also

* Level junction (diamond) * Railroad switch (turnout) *
Swingnose crossing A swingnose crossing or moveable point frog is a device used at a railway turnout to eliminate the gap at the common crossing (a.k.a. frog) which can cause damage and noise. Fixed crossing On a fixed railway crossing, the wheels need only d ...


References

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External links


Detailed photographs of an OWLS diamond in Chenoa, Illinois

Video compilation of Moorhead Junction, site of BNSF's full flange-bearing diamonds.
Note the lack of diamond clatter, as opposed t
the conventional diamond in this video.
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