Fully automated track rehabilitation

comradestalin

Watching some of the videos that Chris Playfair has put up of progress on the renewal of the railway up in Coleraine, I'm struck by how manual and labour intensive the process is (which contributes to the line being out of service for so long). The relay is scheduled to progress at a rate of approximately 5 miles per month.

Here's a Plasser & Theurer clip showing a massive machine which renews the substructure and the ballast automatically in one continuous step, with additional steps to automatically replace the sleepers and rails. Why can't we hire and use equipment like this in this country ?

http://youtu.be/iF-3ditSCIk

Probably that pesky 5'3" gauge again.

dowlingm

Maybe IE and NIR could afford one if they went halvsies, or signed a joint contract with a third party to own/operate one. Look at how this project is tying up 2 111 class locos, leaving only one for the rest of NI because 201s can't go north of Belfast and the IE 071s aren't fitted out with NI gear.

Also, I have been noticing mention of the autoballasters being not a total success so maybe automatic also means cranky?

One thought though - perhaps NIR's alignment is too far gone for an automated behemoth in this case? I understood a big chunk of this work was rehabilitating wet spots.

comradestalin

I had kind of imagined gauge would not be a problem (it isn't a problem for the other P&T equipment that NIR/IÉ own) but I don't know if custom builds are required or if the gauge is adjustable.

It would not be at all feasible for the two firms to purchase a monstrous piece of gear like this, but I'd have thought they should be able to hire it.

I wouldn't get too worked up about tying up locos given that NIR's three are never used anyway; and if they had an emergency there's always 141 and 142 down in the RPSI shed.

I seem to remember quite some time ago, around the time of the major Bangor and Larne line relays, that IÉ and NIR had purchased a hefty piece of track relaying kit from Harsco. Whatever became of that ?

Markcheese

I presume if any company was going to buy a behemoth like that they'd want to know that they had years of steady work ahead for it ...and if it's as good as that shows it would run out of track in Ireland pretty soon.. Apart from IE being bust ...

Hilly Bill

comradestalin wrote: »

Watching some of the videos that Chris Playfair has put up of progress on the renewal of the railway up in Coleraine, I'm struck by how manual and labour intensive the process is (which contributes to the line being out of service for so long). The relay is scheduled to progress at a rate of approximately 5 miles per month.

Here's a Plasser & Theurer clip showing a massive machine which renews the substructure and the ballast automatically in one continuous step, with additional steps to automatically replace the sleepers and rails. Why can't we hire and use equipment like this in this country ?

http://youtu.be/iF-3ditSCIk

They do have them here but are not used together. To use all three together like in the vid might require a long shut down of the section of track .