Technical Development of Inspection Methods for Switches and Crossings in the East Japan Railway Company

摘要

This paper shows the outlines, history and future of inspection styles for switches and crossings (S&Cs) used throughout the East Japan Railway Company (EJR). These S&Cs are essential facilities for railway operations, and they need to be inspected in much more detail than ordinary track because their structure is relatively complicated and contains moving parts. Therefore improvement of inspection methods for them has continuously been an important problem for railway operators like the EJR. We introduce inspection instruments for S&Cs, innovation of S&C structure to save inspection work, and a monitoring method for S&Cs in this paper.