ABSTRACT
Vale’s Estrada de Ferro Carajás (EFC) railway is a heavy haul line primarily carrying iron ore from the mine at Carajás to the port at São Luís, Maranhão, over 890 km of track. The route is 77% tangent, 10% sharp curves and 13% mild curves (Sroba et al. 2013). Vale have been monitoring the hunting and geometry condition of the bogies on the EFC line since 2009. Vale have detected clear patterns in the prevalence of hunting in the rolling stock between 2009 to 2017. The patterns are evidently distinct for empty versus loaded wagons, and the patterns of hunting manifestation in each has been unexpected during some periods of time. This paper describes these patterns, and how they correlate with changes that occurred in the rolling stock, and the track. This paper illustrates the inter-relationship between track degradation and rolling stock degradation, and how Vale has addressed these issues.
