Introduction
Railway asset monitoring is transforming how railways manage risk, performance and reliability across their network. Traditional approaches to inspections and maintenance are no longer enough on their own. As assets age and become ‘weathered’, degradation can go undetected until they trigger failures or service disruptions, often resulting in costly regulatory breaches and penalties for operators.
The challenge fleet maintainers face when they rely solely on traditional maintenance approaches is that they often have to deal with reactive interventions, increasing the gap from strategic maintenance to firefighting. The solution is to transition to an efficient, early intervention maintenance strategy, such as Camlin Rail’s fleet and infrastructure monitoring solution, TrainVue. A modular suite of products that uses real-time monitoring to enable intelligence-led decisions.
By adopting condition-based monitoring, inspections become predictive, and maintenance becomes targeted. Enabling fleet maintainers to maximise asset performance, protect safety, and meet compliance regulations, all to keep passengers moving with confidence.
The role of routine inspections and planned maintenance
Traditional approaches to inspections and planned maintenance play an important role and should complement an in-service fleet and infrastructure monitoring solution, not replace it.
Scheduled inspections enhance fleet maintainers’ ability to detect issues early and prevent failures through the correlation of planned inspections, backed by accurate in-service data, for a targeted approach. Proactive inspections reduce unplanned downtime and costly repairs by detecting asset degradation early and minimising risk.
Maintenance schedules are planned based on inspection findings or during planned intervals as preventative action. During these planned maintenance schedules, fleet maintainers can fix damage to the train, maximising the asset’s operational lifespan.
Key benefits of planned maintenance include:
- Improved reliability and service availability
- Increase safety for passengers and employees
- Utilising resources efficiently for targeted maintenance
Driving the digital railway forward with intelligent insights
TrainVue captures and analyses images of rolling stock at full line speed, providing the necessary visibility required to monitor railway assets and detect issues before they disrupt services. The data captured is visually presented to maintenance teams via a secure, web-based user interface – allowing fleet maintainers to use intelligent insights to target their fleet maintenance.
Camlin Rail’s software solution, Theia, sits centrally within the fleet and infrastructure monitoring ecosystem. The software includes deep learning and predictive analytics to deliver powerful insights that enhance informed decision-making across the network. Helping increase inspection accuracy and optimise maintenance planning without the high costs, service disruption and safety risks of manual inspections.
Industry impact
The impact inspections and maintenance have on railway assets (including catenary, rolling stock, bogies, overhead lines, and roof inspections) is central to operational success. The cost of running a railway is increasing rapidly – budgets are tight, and staffing resources are limited. The impact of not investing in a monitoring solution can cause undiscovered failures to grind operations to a halt. Leading to financial penalties and reputational concerns. TrainVue is a cost-effective monitoring solution that enables railways to maximise their value-added resources and improve resource allocation.
Conclusion
Inspections and maintenance are often discussed interchangeably, yet their impact is fundamentally different. Inspection is about intelligence; continuous monitoring and assessing asset condition to understand how assets are truly performing in real-time.
Maintenance is about action, applying corrective or preventive interventions to keep assets operational. When inspection is treated as a periodic obligation rather than a strategic capability, fleet maintainers are forced into reactive maintenance, increasing risk, cost and disruption.
By investing in a fleet and infrastructure monitoring solution, accurate data-driven inspections transform periodic schedules into prioritised condition-based activities.
Monitoring solutions like TrainVue help reduce risk at its earliest stage, create safer networks, strengthen regulatory compliance and more reliable operations.
