The speed with which today’s automated equipment lays railroad track is amazing. In the old days, railroad tracks were laid by huge crews of workers who did everything by hand. The two videos below show first, a railroad tie replacement technology, and second, an automated railroad laying machine.
New Assembly Line-Like Methods of Repairing, Fixing Railroad Tracks
These new machines provide:
- specialized robot guidance
- inline quality inspection systems
- tamping
- ballast distributing and profiling
- stabilization and consolidation
- ballast bed cleaning
- formation rehabilitation
- material logistics
- track renewal and track laying
- renewal and laying of turnouts
- mobile rail rectification
- measuring work
- installation of catenary
- track maintenance using track motor vehicles
- machine systems
The following video shows an ingeniously designed technology used to quickly replace railroad ties.
The following video shows an RU 800S machine built by Plasser & Theurer, which lays the entire track and also does ballast cleaning and track renewal with just one machine.