The Situation
A major train maintenance depot was carrying-out gearbox oil drains at 10,000 kilometre intervals. At each of these intervals, the Shell Spirax oil was drained and sent for safe disposal, while being replenished with new product. The process was costly and the levels of wastage was raising questions about sustainability. Due to additive shortages, and problems in the oil supply chain, the oil being used was becoming increasingly scarce.
The Solution
HAYLEY DEXIS | Rail was made aware of the situation and began exploring the possibilities around oil filtration, a procedure that HAYLEY DEXIS are experienced in assisting customers with, particularly alongside long-standing partner, HYDAC. Instead of being collected for disposal, the drained Shell Spirax oil is now transferred to a portable IBC from which samples are taken for analysis at the HYDAC laboratory. If the samples are approved, the IBC is collected by HAYLEY DEXIS | Rail and taken for filtration by HYDAC. Following close scrutiny of the results by HAYLEY DEXIS | Rail’s dedicated quality assurance team, and then the customers’ own engineering personnel, the filtered oil is shipped back to site. The entire end-to-end process has been given the seal of approval by Shell.
"IT HAS BEEN CALCULATED THAT THE SOLUTION WILL SAVE 67.1 TONNES OF CO2e PER YEAR."
The Result
The depot is set to benefit in a number of ways, including:
• Reduced costs thanks to the service life of the gearbox oil being significantly increased. The oil will be able to be filtered and re-used up to thirty times.
• Reduced costs with the much-reduced requirement for oil disposal services.
• Fewer challenges in sourcing virgin gearbox oil should supply chain problems persist or issues arise again.
• Improved environmental sustainability as less virgin oil is being used, and disposal of used oil is less frequent. It has been calculated that the solution will save 67.1 tonnes of CO2e per year. This would be the equivalent of taking 134 cars off the road.
This project won the “Outstanding Carbon Reduction Initiative” award at the TfL Zero Harm Conference in 2024