Bound track

Bedding renewal by grating on two sections of the Szombathely - Hegyeshalom railway line

Published

2024. 04. 24. 15:47

Magyar Építők

The SWIETELSKY Vasúttechnika specialists carried out almost seven kilometres of bedding layer work.

The ballast replacement work on two sections of the Szombathely – Hegyeshalom (– Rajka) railway line was carried out by SWIETELSKY Vasúttechnika Kft, using the high-performance Plasser & Theurer RM 85-750 ballast cleaning machine belonging to its Austrian parent company, SWIETELSKY AG.

Wear and tear of the railway ballast is a natural process: the dynamic effects of vehicles on the ballast over time will erode the crushed stone material, and wind from the environment, especially from the surrounding farmland, can also add significant amounts of dust to the ballast. Together, these phenomena lead to the deterioration of the ballast and cause a loss of track stability. For these reasons, it is necessary to clean the ballast from time to time, remove the fragmented grains and dust and restore the ballast to the optimum 32/50 mm grain size," Szilágyi Gábor, foreman, told us.

In the first phase, crushed stone was screened on a section of approximately 2,600 linear metres between Csorna and Bősárkány, and in the second phase, on a section of approximately 4,300 linear metres between Bősárkány and Jánossomorja.

The fumigated material was transported in MFS wagons

As a preparatory step in the work process, it was necessary to carry out bedding and flooring excavation. The aim of the bedding was to enable the grate (with a working width of around 4 m) to remove as much material as possible, with a view to both economic and environmental considerations. After these operations, the site was taken over by the RM 85-750 screening machine, which arrived from the Austrian parent company's Fischamend site after an annual maintenance programme.

The machine uses a scraper chain to pick up the ballast material and transport it to the screen, where the fine particles are separated. The screened crushed stone is returned to the track by the machine, while the screenings that cannot be reused are transported by conveyor belt to MFS wagons (conveyor belt assembly), which transport the screenings to the unloading point, where they are deposited and then transported away.

The landfilled spoil can be used - after qualification - for embankment and embankment construction.

The extent of contamination of the crushed stone depends on the amount of the existing bedding that can be reintroduced into the bedding. The missing crushed stone will then need to be replaced and the affected track sections will need to be track-controlled to restore the original track geometry. However, these works were no longer the responsibility of SWIETELSKY Vasúttechnika Kft. on the line in question.

The chain can work up to two kilometres a day

The Plasser & Theurer machine is one of the most modern and therefore most efficient bed freezing machines. The hydraulically operated mechanism consists of two units, which are hinged together. A special feature is that the aggregate that drives the machine is a separate unit from the screening unit. It is over forty-four metres long and weighs one hundred and fifty-seven tonnes. The scraper chain can remove six hundred and fifty cubic metres of bedding material per hour. The machine has a capacity of between one hundred and fifty and one hundred and eighty metres of track per hour, which means that it can screen almost two kilometres of bedding in a ten-hour shift.

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