Old contact wire gets a new life

Strukton, Railtech, La Farga, and Overdie Metals have established a closed-loop recycling consortium to reprocess decommissioned railway overhead lines into certified contact wire for the Dutch rail network. The initial installation deploys the re-engineered conductor wire along the railway corridor near Driehuis, transitioning legacy rail infrastructure materials directly into active traction power distribution.

Supply Chain Circularity in Traction Electrification
Traction overhead contact systems require high-purity copper conductors capable of sustaining continuous mechanical tension, high electrical conductivity, and high resistance to wear from pantograph friction. Conventional overhead wire fabrication relies heavily on primary mined copper, which involves energy-intensive smelting, large volumes of process water, and high carbon emissions. Virgin copper extraction also exposes transport networks to international raw-material supply constraints. Closing the recycling loop within regional infrastructure requires an integrated processing chain to harvest, refine, and re-draw contact wire to strict rail-electrification standards without degrading electrical or mechanical properties.

Consortium Division and Process Pipeline
The circular production process relies on a coordinated multi-tier processing workflow:

Strukton and Railtech recovered 3.5 tonnes of decommissioned overhead wire from legacy Dutch rail projects. Railtech transferred the harvested copper to Overdie Metals, which executed scrap cleaning, sorting, and mechanical pre-processing to prepare the metal for high-purity thermal reprocessing.

La Farga received the pre-processed material at its smelting facilities, using a patented pyrometallurgical recycling process to convert the recovered metal into GENIUS, a 100 percent recycled copper product. The refined copper was drawn into finished contact wire conforming to European standard EN 50149 and technical specifications established by Dutch rail infrastructure manager ProRail. Strukton executed the physical installation and tensioning above the active railway track. Logistics were handled using intermodal road and rail transport powered by renewable electricity.

Mechanical Compliance and Environmental Metrics
Laboratory and field qualification confirms that the recycled contact wire matches conventional contact lines in tensile strength, elongation, and electrical conductivity. The technical specifications verify complete functional equivalence without requiring modifications to existing catenary registration arms, tensioning devices, or pantograph collectors.

Operating a closed-loop supply chain yields measurable resource savings compared to virgin copper production. Manufacturing the contact wire from 100 percent recycled copper reduces carbon dioxide emissions by 92 percent and sulfur dioxide emissions by 99 percent. In addition, the refining process reduces industrial water consumption by 99 percent and fossil fuel usage by 89 percent, retaining critical conductive metals within European industrial circulation.

Edited by Romila DSilva, Induportals Editor, with AI assistance.