Scientific paper ID 2731 : 2025/3

According to the current regulations, when devices at automatic railroad crossings are malfunctioned, trains stop in front of them. Every start of train movement results in a certain amount of energy consumption. By analyzing the available records of defective signaling and safety devices in a certain time period on the Belgrade - Mala Krsna railway line section, it was determined which railroad crossings were malfunctioned and how long they had been malfunctioned. For the purposes of this work, several railroad crossings, which most often ”fall into failure”, were examined. Knowing the local conditions on the part of the line where the certain crossing is located and the influence of local conditions on train movement starting and accelerating, from that point until reaching the regular speed, it is possible to analytically determine the approximate power used. In or-der to simplify the calculation, this paper considers an average freight train which operates on the mentioned section and it is a 1000 t train with electric traction. Based on the average daily number of trains on the mentioned section, as well as the time coefficient of railroad crossing devices failure, it was determined how much total power was used for additional starts and accelerations of all trains, at observed railroad crossings on a daily basis or in some other observed period of time. Looking at the total power used and based on the price of electricity use, the amount of additional costs for train traction on a specific example was determined. The obtained cost values could be of importance for finding the most critical places on the railway network, the ranking of railroad crossings or malfunctioning signaling and safety devices, according to the investing priority for their repair or improvement of their work, as well as in numerous other subjects of research.