As it has been released, American lighting manufacturer General Electric (GE) has comprehensively retrofitted the rail network of Russian Railways with LED-lighting. The new LED-lighting has not only been installed in train stations, but also at tunnels, bridges, platforms and other locations.

 

Russian Railways addressed GE to fulfill its two main objectives of which the first one is a distinctive reduction of the energy consumption. The second target was a better visibility at particular locations in order to increase the safety of both, train passengers and Russian Railways staff, resulting in a better overall-service.

 

 

GE has stated that the project was based on precise lighting- and profitability-calculations in advance. As GE furthermore pointed out, the whole retrofit-project has not been realized “off the shelf”, but under the close cooperation of Russian Railways experts who advised GE about specific situations on-site. The latter made it possible to work out individual solutions in different environments.

 

According to GE the introduction of efficient LED-lighting has lead to a dramatic reduction of maintenance cost and energy savings of impressive 1.4 million kW per year and a remarkable improvement of the general visibility as confirmed in passenger opinion polls.

 

So far over 1.100 LED lighting fixtures have been installed. All fixtures come with an advanced reflector which allows an improved light distribution control. As GE has declared, the new reflector technology diminishes some typical problems within lighting fixtures, such as spill light or disturbing glare.

 

The fixtures as applied in this project come with IP65 and IP66-ratings and rated life-spans of 50.000 respectively 60.000 hours.

 

This retrofit project within the world’s second largest railway station can be regarded as another landmark of LED lighting application which will certainly be followed by other railway companies soon. gm.