The diagnosis technology for the overhead catenary system is expected as a powerful tool to make the life cycle cost lower. The waveform of the contact force between pantograph and contact wire will contain essential information for diagnosis. The authors propose an improved measuring method for the contact force which can easily apply to any type of pantograph. To characterize the overhead catenary by using the measured contact force, the short-time Fourier transform method is very effective. This paper shows some results of analyzing the contact force by this method. Finally, a method to identify the wave propagation velocity of a contact wire using this analysis is also proposed as a diagnosis technology.

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