RAIL LIVE PREVIEW
SRS wiring unit dispenses contact wire
Contact wire is inserted into the conductor beam
Erecting overhead aluminium conductor beams safely
The task was to lift about 300 lengths of aluminium conductor beam, each up to 12 metres long, to pantograph height, to connect them together and to fix them to registration arms. John Rooke, a director of SRS Rail System International Ltd, explains how the company worked with Network Rail and Balfour Beatty to solve this problem by building a system of elevating rollers and platforms onto SRS flatbed road rail vehicles.
SRS
Rail System Limited takes pride in its ability to design the right tool for
the job. A typical example is the elevating roller system made recently to help Balfour Beatty Rail Projects Ltd. The task was to install Balfour Beatty’s reduced depth overhead conductor beam electrification system in the Thameslink line between King’s Cross Thameslink station (disused) and St Pancras low level station – about 1.7km of double track.
The reduced depth overhead conductor beam is primarily designed for use in locations where space is at a premium. It consists of a hollow aluminium beam with a slot in its underside. The slot is shaped to receive a standard contact wire. The beam is shaped so that rollers in a special tool can prize open the slot and insert the contact wire. The slot closes elastically behind the tool. The conductor beams were to be fixed to about 160 supports and, because many structures and services already existed, distances between them varied. Therefore the conductor beams were cut to length and drilled on site. Internal joint bars, bolted to the beams, spliced individual sections into a continuous beam.
The task was to lift up to 12 metres of aluminium beam to contact height, to connect it to the preceding length and to fix it to registration
184 | rail technology magazine Apr/May 14 Roller arm lifts a section of conductor beam to meet its predecessor
arms. This operation would be repeated about 300 times. It needed to be both safe and slick.
Two working height platforms running the length of the loading area, with a slot between them, were constructed on the flatbed of an SRS vehicle. Conductor rail could be slid onto the flatbed between the working platforms and then lifted to working height by long, hydraulically powered arms terminating in rollers at either end of the slot. The rollers could be inched up or down to assist the splicing process.
The system was mounted on a 25-tonne SRS
platform RRV and repeated on a second. Each, together with an SRS 25-tonne wiring unit and an SRS pantograph vehicle, formed part of two installation teams. Three trailers towed by the SRS vehicles and two MEWPs completed each team, one for each track.
The task was scheduled for a 104-hour blockade. A true spirit of collaboration between all concerned ensured that the work was complete with four hours to spare.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.srsrailuk.com
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