PRESS RELEASE
November 16, 1996
New washing technology gets
Swedish high-speed trains clean

When the ABB X2000 high-speed train glides into the station, its front is plastered with flies. The train’s white nose seems to have grown fur in the summer heat. Up to now, the train has had to be cleaned manually, an arduous job in which cleaners have to push and pull brushes with handles four metres long to scrub off the insects and dirt. But now Swedish company AB Kambre has supplied Sweden’s national train operator SJ with an automatic washing installation that can also tackle the sloping front of the X2000 high-speed train.

New equipment designed to wash the front, skirt and nose plough of the train has been added to the existing installation for washing the sides. The front of the X2000 is complex to wash automatically; its geometry is tricky, with its slope and the curved shapes of the nose plough. Damage to windscreen wipers and antennas must be avoided too. And it’s the front of the train that collects the most dirt.



Successful co-operation
The new ‘train wash’, which is intended both for the X2000 and for SJ’s other local trains in the West of Sweden, was developed by SJ together with AB Kambre. The mechanicals were designed and manufactured by Norwegian company Brövig of Kristiansand.
In addition to the new brushes for washing the front, the plough and the skirt, the control equipment for the train wash has been completely modernised.
“For various reasons we can’t use a portal with brushes lowered from above. Instead we had to develop brushes that swing in from the side at exactly the correct angle relative to the front of the train. This is far more complicated than brushes operating from above”, says Karl-Axel Kambre of AB Kambre.

Environmentally-adapted train wash with recycling
At the entrance to the train wash, the train is sprayed with alkaline detergent and oxalic acid. Altogether 20 brushes wash the train. A treatment plant treats the process water so that 90% of it can be re-used. The detergents have been chosen so that any waste products can be discharged into the drains. Dosing is done automatically with the aid of a control program and a computer.
The total time required to wash an X2000 train is thirteen minutes.
AB Kambre plans, designs and supplies complete maintenance installations for cleaning large vehicles. Some manufacturing is done by the Norwegian company Brövig. Together the companies have supplied more than 600 installations, most of them for public transport utilities in the Scandinavian countries. In order to be able to offer this know-how further afield, the company is seeking national co-operation partners in several countries./ins

Caption:
A new computer-controlled washing installation for the X2000 high-speed train and SJ local trains in the West of Sweden can wash a train set in thirteen minutes.

For further information:
AB Kambre
Karl-Axel Kambre
Box 7221
S-183 07 TÄBY
Sweden
Phone: +44 8 630 01 31
Fax: +44 8 630 01 19

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