  Rail breaks are one of the most common causes of derailments internationally.
This is no different for the South African Iron Ore line. Many rail breaks
occur as a heavy-haul train passes over a crack, large defect or defective
weld. In such cases, it is usually too late for the train to slow down in time
to prevent a de-railment. Knowing the risk of a rail break occurring associated
with a train passing over a section of rail allows for better implementation of
maintenance initiatives and mitigating measures. In this paper the Ore Line's
specific challenges are discussed and the currently available data that can be
used to create a rail break risk prediction model is reviewed. The development
of a basic rail break risk prediction model for the Ore Line is then presented.
Finally the insight gained from the model is demonstrated by means of
discussing various scenarios of various rail break risk. In future work, we are
planning on extending this basic model to allow input from live monitoring
systems such as the ultrasonic broken rail detection system.
