Technical documents, industry research, and real-world references — for operators, engineers, and decision-makers who want the full picture.
Everything you need to go deeper. Technical documents, industry research, and real-world references — for operators, engineers, and decision-makers who want the full picture.
AirflowRail Documents
Six documents covering the full scope of AirflowRail — from physical principles to CFD results. Available upon request.
Technical
Technical Overview
Purpose, operating principle and operational value of the AirflowRail system.
All documents available upon request — response within 48 hours.
The problem — as documented by the industry
These are not AirflowRail's claims. These are official sources from the rail industry itself — operators, infrastructure managers and safety bodies — documenting the same problem AirflowRail was built to solve.
① Regulatory Framework
★★★
ERA
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EU Regulation
TSI LOC&PAS — Clause 4.2.4.6
Mandatory EU compliance — adhesion performance limits every rolling stock manufacturer must satisfy before market authorisation in Europe.
100+ member networks worldwide. UIC publishes operational guidance on seasonal contamination, wheel–rail interaction and mitigation practices across every continent.
The UK's definitive adhesion research standard. AirflowRail's CFD jet velocity was validated against the T546 contamination removal threshold — exceeded by a factor of ×3.9.
SNCF documents how crushed leaf film creates a vegetal paste that drastically reduces wheel–rail adhesion during autumn operations across the French network.
SNCF Réseau outlines the operational risks of adhesion loss and the annual safety campaigns deployed to manage seasonal contamination across the national infrastructure.
£355M/year cost, 337,700 delay minutes in 2023 — industry overview of the scale of the problem and the fundamental limitations of current reactive solutions.
US Transit Cooperative Research Program review of methods to improve adhesion under moisture, ice, grease and vegetation — confirming the problem is global.
Joint INSA Lyon / SNCF Réseau study demonstrating how moisture activates leaf film and severely reduces the friction coefficient at the wheel–rail interface.
Full-scale rolling contact tests showing leaves induce adhesion values as low as 0.05 — regardless of leaf species — confirming the universality of the phenomenon.
Characterising Leaf-Based Low Adhesion — HAROLD Rig
Full-scale HAROLD test rig confirming ultra-low adhesion in all leaf-contaminated conditions — even after partial removal of the leaf layer from the rail surface.
Analysis of low-adhesion causes — oil, rain, ice, micro-wetting, leaf contamination — and why the lack of real-time network detection leads to system-wide conservative responses.
Four references from the field — news coverage, scientific footage and incident reports. The problem is not theoretical.
🇫🇷Incident · 2025
Le Parisien
Paris: A Tram Fails to Stop and Crashes Into a Bus
November 2025 — a tram slides on leaf-contaminated rails, fails to brake in time, and collides with a bus. A real-world demonstration of the consequences of adhesion loss.
Leaf Displacement in the Aerodynamic Wake of a Train
Scientific footage showing how leaves behave in the aerodynamic wake of a moving train — directly relevant to AirflowRail's preventive airflow approach.
