Providing Qualified Railroad Welders
The European railway industry needs qualified and certified personnel By M. L. Quintino, European Federation for Welding, Joining and Cutting, Porto Salvo, Portugal. Reprinted with permission: The AWS Welding Journal Many rail travelers view engineering simply as the reason their journeys were delayed. Many are not even aware that rails are welded, let alone recognize the challenges the industry faces in recruiting and developing the next generation of welders, welding technologists, and welding engineers. However, the sector faces significant challenges in filling crucial posts within the rail welding management, supervisory, and delivery structure.
Rail integrity is essential to both the safety and the economics of rail travel. Wheel-to-rail interaction causes wear and fatigue that will, ultimately, cause the rail to fail. Allowing a rail to run to failure is, in most cases, an unacceptable risk, so rail monitoring and inspection result in rails being replaced before failure. Efficient rail replacement is most often achieved by removing a relatively short section and replacing it with new rail, which is then welded into place. Welding is performed on the track during quiet operating periods, most commonly overnight on weekends, and possibly in all weather conditions.
Different regions of the world have developed standards and guidlines to support the industry in meeting the quality requirements for use of welding in the rail network. Examples are EN 14730-1, Railway applications – Track – Aluminothermic welding of rails – Part 1: Approval of welding processes; EN 14730-2, Railway applications – Track – Aluminothermic welding of rails – Part 2: Qualification of aluminothermic welders, approval of contractors and acceptance of welds; EN 15594, Railway applications – Track – Restoration of rails by electric arc welding; AWS D15.1, Railroad Welding Specification for Cars and Locomotives; and AWS Safety and Health Fact Sheet Bundle for Railroad Welding, which is available at aws.org.
Back in 2003, before EN Standards 14730 and 15594 were published, the European Federation for Welding, Joining, and Cutting (EWF), due to its continuous search to find ways to improve welding education in Europe, was asked to investigate rail welding education. After researching among its own network of 28 European members, it concluded there was no harmonization of the training, qualification, and certification of rail welders in Europe.
The EWF findings were discussed with railway track welding experts in workshops throughout Europe, with the involvement of representatives of many stakeholders. The result was the clear need to take solid steps to guarantee the competence of the welders to both address a shortage of welding personnel and support improvements in the quality of rail welding.
A group of European organizations initiated two EU-funded collaborative projects with the aim of creating a nonmandatory, harmonized system for training, qualification, and certification of railway track welders for the two welding processes commonly used — aluminothermic welding and arc welding. This initiative was the foundation of the EWF RAILSAFE system that was launched in 2007.
The principles on which the RAILSAFE system is based are the following:
- To have trained and certified railway track welders available for companies to ensure the quality and reliability of the railway tracks and thus reduce accidents and downtime caused by welding problems;
- To harmonize education, qualification, and certification by making the exchange of specialized welders for national railway authorities and companies in the European Union possible;
- To ensure the quality of and access to continuing vocational education and certification for life-long competence, and increase employability of railway welders across national borders.
