robel.info 8
22.10.09
The eighth issue of our magazine takes a closer look at machines for fastening rails, particularly the 34.01 clipping machine.
Read an excerpt of the article here.
Fasten your rails, please
Deutsche Bahn AG maintains about 36,000 kilometres of track - an impressive enough scale on its own - but that's not all by a long shot. Every 60 centimetres there is normally a sleeper - amounting to 1,667 of them per kilometre. Usually each sleeper supports two rails - each with two fastenings. This amounts to 6,666 screws or springs per kilometre, or an incredible 240 million fastening points approximately in the German railway system alone. In addition to that there is a considerable number of industrial sidings and branch lines, tramways, light railway systems and metros, which are not even included in the above figures. All in all, this amounts to about 300 to 350 million rail fastenings in Germany. Nobody will ever be able to count them all. If we extrapolate this to the rest of Europe and the world we end up with astronomic figures. And yet each one of these rail fastenings is important for the operational safety and stability of a track - and must therefore be regularly monitored and maintained. Then there is the loosening and re-fastening when rails are replaced, and the construction of new track sections. This makes for a great deal of work that must be carried out with care.
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