Taking care of the rail:
Rail flaws and joint gaps reduce ride comfort, damage rail vehicles and have a negative effect on the track system. Normally they can only be remedied on the line. The same applies for rail welding – and here, too, mobile methods of work are necessary.
Plasser American offers a wide range of machines for the removal of rail flaws. Planing and grinding machines guarantee an effective and cost-efficient correction of faults in the longitudinal and lateral rail profile. Beyond that, the mobile welding machines of the APT series brought the well-proven process of electric flash-butt welding to the track, and it has been perfected over the past years.
What rail flaws occur?
Wear of the rails occurs as a normal result of attrition due to rail traffic. Any defects in the track will additionally result in special anomalies. Normally it can be expected that there will be wear and deformation of the rail head as well as the formation of corrugations and waves. All rail flaws increase the costs for track maintenance. For the passengers they mean less travel comfort and also a noise nuisance.
How are rail flaws eliminated?
Mobile rail grinding functions primarily on the basis of the oscillating movement of the grinding units and secondly due to the continuous forward travel of the machine. The grinding stones adapt to the rail cross-section.
Rail planing reprofiles the rail head without having to remove the rail. To achieve this, various planing tools are applied in the appropriate order. A particular advantage of this method is that welded rails are given a new profile while installed in the track.
The flash-butt welding process applied for many years in welding works can now be used directly on the track by mobile welding machines. No foreign material is used in the welding process. The resulting weld has better mechanical properties than other welding processes.