The use of sand to aid adhesion on the railway is so simple, yet incredibly effective, says Freightliner’s Bessie Matthews.
It's beautiful here. The sun is shining, seagulls are calling out through the fluffy white clouds, sunglasses are protecting me from squinting in the bright day and the softest sand trickles through the gaps between my fingers.
No, I’m not on holiday! I’m standing with a Class 66 at Southampton Maritime’s busy fuel point, and I’m checking the sand levels in one of the eight sand boxes around the loco.
Although you’ll find much more sand on a beach, the railway is surprisingly covered in the stuff. For something so simple, as you’ll see elsewhere in this issue of Right Track, it plays a massive role in the safe passage of trains.
Traction sand is exactly what it says on the tin – it provides an extra grip on the rails on days where it might be lacking, like during our British summer, for example. It can be dispensed by a push of a button, the pull of a little lever or even by a train’s management system when it can feel its own wheels spinning.
This sand is ground down to be super fine and is distributed by trains and locomotives in the perfect amount along the railhead. Too little would have hardly any effect at all; too much could cause the train’s wheels to slip over multiple grains of sand.
That perfect amount is blown out of a distribution pipe by main res air at some speed, with a Class 66 discharging sand at a rate of up to 150 grams every 15 seconds.
This crucial sand doesn’t just go from beach, to bag, to train. It’s mined from various coasts, riverbeds and lakesides, going through milling systems where it’s then screened, cleaned and sent to railway depots by the pallet.
Always remember to check your sand levels before taking a locomotive or unit off depot, and report to the rolling stock team when sand levels are low.
Make sure you know how the wheel slide protection systems and sand work on each class you drive.
Share information on sanding ‘hot spots’ with your management team, and your fellow drivers. Forewarned is forearmed.
Southampton Maritime Maintenance Depot gets through a fair amount alone. An average pallet has a good 50 bags, and during the wetter months, a depot like Southampton’s can issue around four pallet’s worth in to the 66s and 70s that pay us a visit. Just one single sand box on a 66 can take up to eight bags of sand from empty.
The use of sand to aid adhesion on the railway is so simple, yet incredibly effective. The first recorded use came in 1886. Its distribution has changed in many ways over the last 136 years. Sanders have been consistently developed to keep up with an ever-changing fleet on a modernising railway. Sanders have been added, taken away, more, or less controlled, with the rules covering sand drop being updated alongside any changes.
The importance of sand to maintaining good adhesion is discussed in our article on the Salisbury collision of 2021. You can also read the related work of Network Rail’s Weather Academy.
An original British Rail sandbox filler, still in use at Southampton.Credit: Bessie Matthews
