Development of Simple Catenary Equipment Using PHC Contact Wire for Shinkansen

Public awareness of global warming and recycling has created a demand to respect environmental conservation and reduce the environmental burden posed by railways. To this end, it is necessary to extend the replacement frequency of the contact wire in the overhead contact line system and apply a copper alloy to improve its recycling efficiency. We therefore selected a new type of equipment (known as PHC simple catenary equipment) through research into the overhead contact line system, performance calculations from simulation, and running tests at our institute. In the final stage of development, we installed the PHC simple catenary equipment on a commercial line to confirm its performance.