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Source: Knorr Brake/New York Air Brake announcement
WESTMINSTER, Md. and WATERTOWN, N.Y. – Partnering to deliver an improved and innovative solution for passenger rail car brake control, Knorr Brake Company (KBC) and New York Air Brake (NYAB) have developed the EE-26™ brake system, engineered for safety, performance, uptime, and lower total cost of ownership.
The EE-26 employs electronic closed-loop control to provide higher reliability, real-time diagnostic capability, and a platform for future advancements. Designed in compliance with American Public Transportation Association (APTA) standard PR-M-S-020-17, EE-26 is aligned with new standards being adopted by many leading railways.
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KBC, headquartered in Westminster, Md., and Watertown, N.Y.-based NYAB are sister companies within Munich-based Knorr-Bremse, a global market leader in braking systems and a leading supplier of other safety-critical rail and commercial vehicle systems.
“North American passenger railcars have been equipped with the same conventional pneumatic brake control for decades,” said Michael Gibbs, KBC’s deputy director of OE sales. “Now, with adoption of electropneumatic control technology significantly increasing in North America, we’ve engineered the EE-26™ brake system with the capability to handle both true pneumatic and electropneumatic control of a braking system. It’s a bridge to the future of passenger car brake control.”
Looking Ahead, Built on Success
In a traditional purely pneumatic system, individual passenger car brakes are activated in response to changes in air pressure through a control pipe that runs the length of a train. In an Electronically Controlled Pneumatic (ECP) system, the brakes respond to electronic signals sent from the locomotive. ECP braking – widely used across the rail industries in Europe, Australia, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia – provides increased safety, improved train-level brake performance, and better diagnostics.
“We often relate the comparative communications speed of pneumatic and ECP signals through a brake system to the speed of sound versus the speed of light,” explained Brendan Crowley, NYAB manager of sales and systems engineering. “In addition to the safety and performance enhancements of greater signal speed, ECP systems deliver real-time diagnostic information and alerts to operators and maintenance staff, which benefits train engineers and technicians, improves train handling, and decreases maintenance downtime.”
Based on NYAB’s service-proven EP-60® product line, the EE-26 brake system represents the future of passenger ECP braking in North America. The system increases the recommended valve overhaul period to 10 years, more than doubling the previous four-year period.
The EE-26’s modular design, using the preferred panel-mounted valve approach from other transit applications, saves space, makes installation easier for car manufacturers, and provides more accessible maintenance compared to existing traditional pipe-mounted equipment.
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Additionally, the EE-26’s integrated diagnostics technology and vehicle networking enable rapid problem identification for quicker repairs and provide more detailed data that helps expedite routine maintenance, overhaul, and replacement planning.
To view the entire announcement, click HERE.
