Railway Track & Structures - August 2008 - (Page 31)

ballast maintenance report Preparing for a Stoneblowing is creating a stir among North American railroads, but don’t get rid of the tampers just yet. blow Ballast supplier reports from: Georgetown Rail Harsco Track Technologies Herzog Knox Kershaw Loram Miner Nordco Plasser American Progress Rail Railway Track & Structures by Mischa Wanek-Libman, assistant editor S out about a decade and, recently, with Queensland Rail for approximately a year. There is a lot of interest in the U.S.,” said Zarembski. “I had the opportunity to do an analysis for Harsco Track Technologies on the technical performance and the economics on the stoneblower.” Zarembski looked at comparison degradation data, which consisted of collected data from several sites, both on Network Rail and Queensland Rail, where the railroads had been tamping for a number of years and then used a stoneblower on the same piece of track. “I have the stoneblowing and tamping cycles. I was able to see how long it took before the next tamping cycle was toneblowing, an automated form of measured shovel packing, has piqued the attention of North American railroads. The technique has been incorporated into the maintenance mix on UK’s Network Rail and Australia’s Queensland Rail. Dr. Allan Zarembski, of ZETA-TECH, will be presenting a paper on the topic at the AREMA 2008 Annual Conference in Salt Lake City. In the history of railroading, measured shovel packing (MSP), also referred to as trowelling, served as the most precise method of placing ballast and manually resurfacing track. Once the tamping process was assimilated into ballast maintenance programs, measured shovel packing was phased out in favor of the speedier and more-cost-effective tampers. “Speed, cost and economics were such driving issues that MSP sort of went away,” said Zarembski. “But what was realized was that the track surface degraded faster under tamping than under the conditions of MSP, which is a very exact and accurate technique.” According to Zarembski, British Rail Research envisioned automating MSP by using a vehicle to pneumatically inject stones under ties in the 1970s. Through the 1990s, British Rail Research, British Rail and Pandrol Jackson, were developing prototype machines and by the current decade, Network Rail began using stoneblowing on a serious basis. “The stoneblower has been in active use in the UK for www.rtands.com Stoneblowing basics August 2008 31 http://www.rtands.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Railway Track & Structures - August 2008

Railway Track & Structures - August 2008 Contents On Track Industry Today Supplier News AREMA News NRC News TTCI R&D Wish List: What Chief Engineers Really Want in M/W Machinery Keeping Ballast in Shape Amtrak Turns to Sophisticated System to Manage NEC Assets Supplier Profiles Products and Literature People Calendar Sales Representatives Website Directory Advertisers Index Professional Directory Classified Advertising Chicago Perspective

Railway Track & Structures - August 2008

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