On some aspects of the wheel/rail interaction

•Roughness from rail grinding is quickly worn from both freight and transit rail.•Deep rail corrugation can strongly affect wheel/rail contact patch geometry.•The “Kalker slope” has a strong effect on wheel–rail stability and damage calculations.•Conformality is demonstrated as a useful indicator of wheel/rail performance.•Further understanding of strain rate effects in wheel/rail contact is needed.

Problems in tribology and contact mechanics are becoming increasingly amenable to solution through models and simulation. But in application to the wheel/rail contact, there remain a number of very important features for which either gross simplifications or a lack of understanding or ability severely limits the success of those efforts. Examples include models of friction and material response (including damage functions). This paper examines a rather eclectic mix of wheel/rail factors with the goal of encouraging researchers to begin tackling and eradicating some of the bigger problem areas that remain in wheel–rail interaction modeling and to consider more rigorous implementation of real world conditions in simulations.