Colas Rail acquired Carillion's plant rail business, making it the owner of the largest fleet of modern on-track plant in the country.And if you think you are seeing things when passing the Ribble Steam Railway, your probably not!Tampers come into the private sidings for regular maintenance and testing of specialist equipment.A ballast tamper or tamping machine is a machine used to pack (or tamp) the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks more durable. Prior to the introduction of mechanical tampers, this task was done by manual labour with the help of beaters. As well as being faster, more accurate, more efficient and less labour-intensive, tamping machines are essential for the use of concrete sleepers since they are too heavy (usually over 250 kg) to be packed into the ballast by hand.
Early machines only lifted the track and packed the ballast. More modern machines, sometimes known as a tamper-liner or tamping and lining machine, also correct the alignment of the rails to make them parallel and level, in order to achieve a more comfortable ride for passengers and freight and to reduce the mechanical strain applied to the rails by passing trains.A Continuous Tamping Machine (CSM) can pack two sleepers at a time in a continuous mode and can pack (tamp) about 1.2 km of track per hour.The majority of track machines are powered by a diesel engine. This provides power to the driving wheels via a cardan shaft, allowing the machine to propel itself to and around a work-site. The engine also drives an hydraulic pump to provide power for the various tools.
Tamping units
For each rail there is a tamping unit attached to the main frame by means of vertical guide columns and a lifting / lowering hydraulic cylinder. The tamping unit consists of tamping tools (arms or "tines"), a vibration motor (hydraulic motor), a vibration shaft and an eccentric flywheel. For each sleeper, a tamping unit is provided with four pairs of tamping arms: one each side of the sleeper, i.e., 16 tamping arms are used for tamping a single sleeper. To process several sleepers simultaneously, a tamping unit may have 32 arms (for two sleepers), leading to the derivation of machine type numbers: "16" indicates 16 tines, enough for single sleeper, "32" for two sleepers, etc.
Tamping units of a Unimat have swivelling tamping arms to pack points and crossings.
Special units are available for use with third-rail electrified track.
For those who want to see an entire galley of Tampers - Visit ON TRACK PLANT |
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