scope:

This document applies to:

a) all staff who inspect or maintain Switches and Crossings on Network Rail infrastructure; and

b) all existing and new modular S&C installations (to the REPW standard design) on Network Rail infrastructure.

This document does not apply to all other designs, including the 'Dog bone' design of pin jointed bearer joint that was adopted at a limited number of sites in Wessex.

Purpose

The purpose of this document is to define the inspection and maintenance tasks that control the performance and safety risks associated with the bearer joints in modular S&C layouts, as well as defining intervention limits for modular joints.

Switch and Crossing units are maintained to the limits and requirements set out in NR/L2/TRK/001/mod05. This document builds on those requirements to provide additional detail on the inspection and maintenance to be carried out on the modular bearer joint.

Compliance with this document provides a process to mitigate risks associated with joint failures and the resulting effects on the rest of the S&C system, and to increase the service life of the modular bearer components by reducing failures.