Rail Dampers - The First Australian Field Trial

Rail damping is an emerging technology for mitigating airborne railway noise at the source. Rail dampers may be described as pre-formed or adjustable elements that are attached to the sides of the rails. These pre-formed elements improve the rail's ability to decay noise-inducing vibrations resulting from the rolling contact between the wheel and rail. The implementation of source controls such as rail dampers can potentially avoid or reduce the need to consider further mitigation options such as noise barriers and building treatments. A field trial was undertaken in cooperation with a European rail damper manufacturer in order to quantify the noise reduction on a section of standard ballast track on the NSW metropolitan rail network. The results of the field trial have highlighted the complexities of selecting and tuning a rail damper for a particular track-form and minimising airborne noise emissions at the wayside. This paper presents a description of the rail dampers (as tested), the methodologies used to evaluate the rail damper performance, outcomes of the field trial and the challenges associated with undertaking such a trial within an operational rail corridor.