IMPROVEMENTS IN OR RELATING TO RAILWAY TRACK-MAINTENANCE MACHINES

• Main Author: FRANZ PLASSER
• Format: Patent
• Language: English
• Published: 08.09.1971
• Subjects: CONSTRUCTION OF ROADS, RAILWAYS, OR BRIDGES; FIXED CONSTRUCTIONS; MACHINES FOR MAKING RAILWAYS OF ALL KINDS; PERMANENT WAY; PERMANENT-WAY TOOLS

1,245,810. Railway track aligning and ballast packing machines. F. PLASSER. 15 Nov., 1968 [23 Nov., 1967], No. 54308/68. Heading E1G. Travelling railway track maintenance apparatus includes at least one ballast surface consolidator 12 which is intermittently slightly lifted - e.g. by hydraulic or other means 17 - so as to reduce the pressure on the ballast and so facilitate the continuous advance of the apparatus. In the track-aligning machine shown the track 4-5 is shifted laterally by tools 7 mounted on a chassis 1 which runs on the track and carries reference-line trolleys, Fig. 1 (not shown), the chassis having on each side one or a pair of outrigged vibratory consolidators 12 engageable with the ballast 6 beyond the sleeper ends. The outrigger arm 13 of the trailing consolidator is intermittently lifted between adjustable stops 15, 16; the leading consolidator may be similarly actuated or may (as shown at 12') be raised clear. Each consolidator may be tilted by a cylinder 21 and moved outwardly by a cylinder 26, and may, in plan view, be inclined to the track axis. The intermittent lifting may be controlled by a timing device; alternatively the arm 13 may have elastic resilience in a horizontal plane and incorporate a limit switch or other device which controls the intermittent lifting in accordance with the frictional drag between the ballast and consolidator.