The production of tailor-made precast concrete solutions such as turnout sleepers or track supporting slabs requires a lot of experience, know-how and the right equipment. Requirements are so specific that it even pays to send these heavy components half-way across the globe …
With a number of factories and competence centres across Austria, Eastern Europe as well as in Turkey, Kirchdorfer Group has been a significant player in large-scale railway infrastructure for a long time. Among the group’s various „track solution“ products are, for instance, turnout sleepers – produced in a separate joint-venture with the Austrian „voestalpine Weichensysteme Gmbh”, world market leader in turnout technology for railways, metros and tramways.
TSF-A, a course-setting joint venture
With the joint Turnout Sleeper Factory Austria (TSF-A GmbH) based in Sollenau (Lower Austria), turnout sleeper technology has constantly been advanced for almost a decade now. The integrated systems are successfully marketed across Central and Eastern Europe, with additional export markets ranging from nearby Switzerland to a rather distant Ireland. That distance is of course nothing compared to TSF-A’s current export success: Thanks to a truly international project consortium with a global supply chain, turnout sleepers will be sent in large numbers across the Atlantic, through the Panama Canal and further down the Pacific Coast of South America …
TSF-A is shipping concrete turnout sleepers to Peru
Lima, the Peruvian capital, has a population of over 10 million people. That’s why the city government is now digging deep into its pockets in order to finance a massive, high-performance extension of its urban metro network: With an investment of 5.8 bio. USD, „Metro de Lima Linea 2″ will be one of the world’s finest and most advanced subway lines. The 35 km-track is currently under construction by mechanized tunnelling. By 2021, the new line is planned to be operated with driverless, state-of-the-art Japanese trains, manufactured in Italy. Part of the prestigious megaproject (constructed by a syndicate of companies from Spain, Italy and Peru) are some 14,400 linear meters of turnout sleepers, due to be shipped from 2017 to 2019 from Sollenau via Antwerpen straight to the port of Callau right outside Lima. Once they reach their final destination, the rail turnouts that are produced by Jez, a Spanish subsidiary of voestalpine VAE Gmbh, will be mounted on the the concrete sleepers. In order to assure a smooth assembly in Lima, a number of turnout sleepers have been sent to Spain beforehand and some prototypes have been set up successfully at the Jez turnout factory (see picture). For their ultimate shipment to Peru, the sleepers have to be carefully packed in a special wooden „cage” in order to avoid transport and handling damage. After that, it’s „ship ahoy” and full speed ahead across the Atlantic and Pacific.
MABA delivers to the United Kingdom
Just around the time of the rather historic „Brexit” vote, the U.K. had been endowed with some delicate concrete „gemstones” from Austria: Some 600 heavy-duty and highly precise slab track elements left the factory at Wöllersdorf and were delivered in roughly equal lots of around 300 each to London and Glasgow. Thereby making sure that Scots and Englishmen would be equally pleased .. . Whether a closer look at those Central European marvels of engineering and manufacturing technology could have had any potential effect on Britain’s desire to stay in the EU, we will never know. Anyways, a closer look at the slab track is hardly what you get once they are put in place. They integrate so seamlessly into the railway track that nobody ever realizes their being there at all. Case in point: London’s „Gospel Oak” as well as the new platforms at Glasgow’s historic „Queen Street Station” (opened in 1842), where the MABA slab track elements have been implemented.
Logistical challenges
Before their transport to the British Isles, a major „small problem” had to be solved: Her Majesty’s couriers showed up in Wöllersdorf with the „wrong” kind of truck. Usually, built-in transport hooks are designed to facilitate the loading of delicate concrete elements from the top. But in the case of the U.K . delivery, forklift trucks had to load them from the side, before the trucks could be sent on their way …
There was just another small little problem with the unexpected side-loading business: You don’t handle a precast concrete element that has been manufactured with delicate geometrical angles to precisions of 0.1 millimeters without the utmost care. That’s why new static calculations had to be performed on how to manipulate the slabs exactly, while the trucks were already waiting to be loaded. Finally, it was all clear for an average of 6 trucks leaving daily, packed with 5 slab track elements each. Great care had also to be taken not to mix up the various elements, since slab track production for an Austrian tunnel project was carried out at the same time, but to slightly different specifications, of course. Whether or not the „Peruvian Expedition” will run into logistical challenges of its own, is still unknown at the time of writing. The shipment of the first load of turnout sleepers is due to take place later in spring 2017 .
What is certain is that the colleagues at the Sollenau plant are perfectly ready to ship the precious cargo in special wooden frames, specifically engineered for a long and arduous sea voyage. Once the cargo will be unloaded in Peru’s port of Callao, there are just a few more steps to its final destination, since the new Lima subway line starts right in the port city. All told, Austrian engineering seems to be in high demand, even across the high seas.