MACHINE TO FORM AND REHABILITATE RAILWAY BALLAST AND RAILWAY ROAD BEDS

Abstract: Machine (110) to form and rehabilitate railway ballast and railway road beds, which comprises a framework (11) rested on a front bogie (12) and rear bogie (13), cabs (14-15) to drive the machine during its travels, an excavation means (19) cooperating with means (20-21) to elevate and transfer materials, a riddle (22) cooperating with means (23-24-25) to transfer and discharge materials and means (26-27-28-29) to recirculate and distribute materials for re-use, the machine (10) comprising additional means suitable for the rehabilitat­ ion operations and including: - first (31) and second (32) transfer conveyors for backfill material (37) and metalling (42) respectively, - a distributor chute (33) cooperating with the first transfer conveyor (31), and discharge chutes (34-134) cooperating with the second transfer conveyor (32), - an intermediate conveyor (35) cooperating with the distributor chute (33), - discharge means (36) to discharge the backfill material (37) onto the bottom of an excavation (38), such means (36) cooperating with a rear conveyor (28), - an assembly (39) to compact the bottom of the excavation (38), such assembly (39) cooperating with the excavation means (19), - means (40) to level the backfill material (37) discharged onto the bottom of the excavation (38), - means (41) to compact the backfill material (37) discharged onto the bottom of the excavation (38), and - means (43) to spread evenly the metalling (42) discharged onto the backfill material.

Description: This invention concerns a machine to form and rehabilitate railway ballast and railway road beds. To be more exact, the invention concerns a rehabilitation machine which is known in itself and can also perform formation operations on the railway road bed when necessary in ground having special characteristics. Such formation operations are carried out with known and already existing devices on the rehabilitation machine in conjunction with additional devices suitable for the purpose; such additional devices may be always comprised on the machine or be only included momentarily for formation work. Machines for the rehabilitation of railway ballast of the type, for instance, disclosed in Italian patent application No.83440 A/84 of the present applicant are known. Machines are also known which form continuously the railway road bed in ground having a particular composition, for instance, of a clayey type. Such formation consists in excavating a channel in the upper part of the railway road bed and backfilling suitable material, normally a mixture of sand and gravel, in the channel. The material excavated together with the metalling of the previous ballast is removed. The ballast is renewed with new metalling after the backfill material has been deposited in the excavation. The document FR-A-2.518.602 discloses a machine suitable to carry out formation work on railway ballast, which comprises a frame anchored to a front bogie and a rear bogie, a pair of drivers's cabs and means to excavate, elevate, transfer and discharge materials. The machine comprises also conveyors for backfill materials and metalling, these conveyors cooperating with relative distribution and discharge means, and also means to compact and level the materials discharged. The structure of this machine is not such as to make possible operations of rehabilitation of the railway ballast, whereby the materials taken from the ballast are engaged, riddled and discharged once more on the site. The machines of the prior art are intended for only one type of operation and can perform either the formation alone or the rehabilitation alone. The present applicants have studied, tested and embodied a machine able to carry out both formation and rehabilitation work. The basic machine is a rehabilitation machine of a known type which cooperates functionally with additional means suitable to form the railway road bed. Such additional means may be always comprised on the machine and may cooperate momentarily with the means of the rehabilitation machine in formation operations alone. According to a variant the additional means are comprised only during formation work. Such additional means consist of elements for the delivery to the machine of backfill material for the road bed and of metalling received from storage waggons connected to the machine. Means are included to distribute the materials delivered to the machine and to pass such materials to differentiated usage sites. The means to distribute and pass the backfill material cooperate with distribution means already comprised in the known formation machine, such latter distribution means moving during formation in a direction opposite to that carried out during rehabilitation work alone. A compaction assembly cooperates with an excavation device in the excavation made. Differentiated assemblies are also included for the even distribution and levelling of the backfill material deposited in the excavation in the road bed and of the metalling deposited on the road bed. The invention is therefore embodied according to the contents of Claim 1 and the dependent claims. The attached figures, which are given as a non-restrictive example, show the following:- Fig.1 shows diagrammatically a rehabilitation machine of a known type; Fig.2 shows diagrammatically an embodiment of a formation and rehabilitation machine according to the invention; Fig.3 gives a diagrammatic side view of an embodiment of the means distributing the materials fed to the formation and rehabilitation machine according to the invention; Fig.4 is a view of the distribution means of Fig.3 from above; Fig.5 is a front view of the distribution means of Fig.3. Fig.1 shows diagrammatically a rehabilitation machine 10 of a known type for railway ballast. This machine 10 comprises a framework 11 rested in this example on a front bogie 12 and a rear bogie 13. Two cabs 14-15 to drive the machine during travelling are provided at the ends of the machine. The figure shows a railway line 16 with rails 17 and sleepers 18. The machine 10 comprises an excavation chain 19 cooperating with a first hopper 20 in transferring the excavated material on a first elevator 21 to a riddle 22, which in this example is a continuous endless conveyor riddle. Means to discharge material, such as a discharge hopper 23, discharge conveyor 24 and a second elevator 25, are included in cooperation with the riddle 22. The references 26, 27, 28 and 29 indicate respectively a terminal chute or funnel, a distributor hopper, a rear orientable conveyor and a lateral discharge outlet for metalling which is recycled during the rehabilitation operations as being re-usable. Means (not shown in Fig.1) to distribute metalling on the ballast cooperate with the rear conveyor 28. Fig.2 shows an embodiment of the rehabilitation machine of Fig.1 with preferred embodiments applied of devices suitable for formation of the railway road bed. The backfill material and metalling coming from storage waggons connected to the formation and rehabilitation machine 110 arrive separately at such machine 110 by means of feed conveyors 30. These materials are fed into transfer conveyors 31 and 32 integrally fixed to the machine 110 for the transfer of backfill material and metalling respectively. A distributor chute 33 cooperating with the first transfer conveyor 31 releases backfill material 37 onto an intermediate conveyor 35, which in turn transfers the material onto the rear conveyor 28. The rear conveyor 28 comprises means 36, chutes for instance, located at the two sides of the rear conveyor 28 for discharge of material. In the event of formation work the rear conveyor 28 is made to move in the opposite direction to that of rehabilitation work. In this way the backfill material 37, as shown in Fig.2, is spread continuously on the bottom of an excavation 38 also shown in Fig.2. A compaction assembly 39 consisting of at least one roller to level the bottom of the excavation 38 is connected to the excavation chain 19; the roller may be provided with a vibration system of the type, for instance, having out-of-balance bodies or the like. In formation operations the excavation chain 19, performs the excavation and transfer of the excavated material and metalling on the first elevator 21 to the second elevator 25, the riddle 22 remaining excluded from work. The material is passed from the second elevator 25 to the discharge hopper 23 and thence to the discharge conveyor 24. The formation and rehabilitation machine 110 comprises integrally means 40 to perform even spreading or levelling, such as a plough or the like, which operate on the backfill material 37 deposited on the bottom of the excavation. Compaction means 41, advantageously of a vibration type, cooperate with the levelling means 40 and work in succession thereto in compacting the levelled backfill material 37. Discharge chutes 34 and 134 cooperating with the second transfer conveyor 32 release their respective material, in this case metalling 42 as shown in Fig.2, directly onto the compacted backfill material 37. Means 43 to spread the metalling 42 evenly are fixed integrally to the machine 110 and may consist, for instance, of one or more elements arranged crosswise to the bed of metalling 42 discharged by the discharge chute 34. Figs.3, 4 and 5 give different diagrammatic views of a possible embodiment of the means which distribute the backfill material 37 and metalling 42; the figures show in particular the arrangement of the distributor chute 33 and discharge chutes 34-134 in relation to the first hopper 20.

Claims: Machine (110) to form and rehabilitate railway ballast and railway road beds, which comprises a framework (11) rested on a front bogie (12) and rear bogie (13), a first driver's cab (14) connected to the front bogie (12) and a second driver's cab (15) connected to the rear bogie (13) and comprises also an excavation means (19) which cooperates during rehabilitation work with first means (20-21) to elevate and transfer materials towards a riddle (22), the riddle (22) cooperating with second means (23-24-25) to transfer and discharge materials and with third means (26-29) to re-circulate and distribute materials for re-use, the third means (26-29) including a rear conveyor (28) of materials which is able to move in a pre-determined direction during rehabilitation work, the machine (110) being characterized in that it comprises also additional means suitable for the formation work, the additional means including: a pair of transfer conveyors (31-32) for backfill materials (37) and metalling (42) respectively coming from storage waggons connected to the machine (110), distributor chutes (34-134) cooperating with one (32) of the transfer conveyors (31-32) and able to distribute metalling (42) on the ballast or railway road bed, and also a distributor chute (33) cooperating with the other transfer conveyor (31) of the pair (31-32) and able to distribute backfill materials (37) at one end of an intermediate conveyor (35) suitable to transfer backfill materials (37) towards the rear conveyor (28), which during formation work can move in a direction opposite to the pre-determined direction, further, the machine comprises: discharge means (36) to discharge onto the bottom of an excavation (38) backfill materials (37) coming from the rear conveyor (28), an assembly (39) to compact the bottom of the excavation (38), such assembly (39) cooperating with the excavation means (19), means (40) to level the backfill materials (37) discharged onto the bottom of the excavation (38), such levelling means (40) being arranged between the discharge means (36) and the pair of distributor chutes (34-134) for the metalling (42), means (41) to compact the backfill materials (37) discharged onto the bottom of the excavation (38), these compaction means (41) being arranged between the levelling means (40) and the pair of distributor chutes (34-134) that distribute metalling (42), and also means (43) able to spread evenly the metalling (42) coming from the pair of distributor chutes (34-134) onto the backfill materials (37). Machine (110) as claimed in Claim 1, in which the additional means for the formation work are comprised in and fixed to the machine (110). Machine (110) as claimed in Claim 1, in which the additional means for the formation work are included momentarily on the machine (110) during formation work alone. Machine (110) as claimed in any claim hereinbefore, in which the transfer conveyors (31-32) cooperate with conveyors (30) which feed backfill materials (37) and metalling (42) taken from storage waggons connected to the machine (110).

Inventors: MANCINI, FLAVIO
Applicants: DANIELI & C. OFFICINE MECCANICHE S.P.A., ITI/CLM IMPIANTI TECNICI INDUSTRIALI SPA
Application year: 1988
Main classification: E01B27
IPC codes: E01B27