Patent GB-861234-A (GB)
Title: Improvements in or relating to apparatus for adjusting the level of railway rail trucks
IPC: E01B35/00
Filed: 1958-06-04
Abstract: 861,234. Levelling railway rail tracks. NORDBERG MANUFACTURING CO. June 4, 1958 [June 5, 1957; Oct. 2, 1957; Dec. 13, 1957], No. 17848/58. Class 104 (2). In railway track level-adjusting apparatus comprising spaced apart wheel-mounted carriages that travel as a unit along the track and track level-adjusting means positioned between the carriages for movement along the track with them, means are provided for establishing two or more reference lines between the carriages and the track level-adjusting means has an indicating mechanism to indicate the position of each rail relative to one of the reference lines independently of the other rail. In the arrangement shown in Fig. 1, the apparatus comprises front and rear carriages A, B which support reference wires a and b and a track-adjusting carriage C. The spacing between the front and rear carriages A and B is about five times the distance between the track adjusting carriage C and the rear carriage B. The carriages are interconnected by longitudinally extending members 5 carried by bars 3 mounted on wheels 4. A projected light beam or beams directed on to photosensitive cell or cells may displace the wires a and b. The track-adjusting carriage C carries an indicator device, track-lifting apparatus and tamping tools. As shown in Fig. 4, the track-lifting apparatus comprises a shoe 15 which engages a rail bed or ballast between adjacent sleepers and is raised or lowered by hydraulic jacks 16. The rails are gripped between jaws 20, 21 operated and locked in position through a rod and a hand lever, Fig. 5 (not shown). The outer jaw 20 engages beneath the rail head and the inner jaw 21 is provided with an abutment 21a which engages the inner face of the rail. The tamping device, Fig. 9, comprises tamping tools 39 engaged at their lower ends by yielding guides 41. and pivotally mounted on a platform 25 about horizontal axis perpendicular to the longitudinal rail axis. The platform 25 is raised or lowered between vertical guides 26 by cables 27 passing over drums 28 to a power source. Leafsprings 30 and pivoted arms 31, outwardly biased by springs 32, centre the platform 25 within the guides 26. A coil spring 36 cushions the platform 25 from stresses in the cable 27. An unbalanced rotor 35 imparts a vibratory movement to the platform 25. The bent lower ends 40 of the tamping tools 39 tend to cause the tools 39 to move towards one another when the tools are inserted into the ballast and when the ballast is to be loosened to enable the sleepers to be raised by the track lifting apparatus. The indicator device shown in Fig. 7 comprises a cross-piece 50 vertically adjustable by means of screws 51 and handles 52, in relation to vertical bars 53, movable in spring-loaded guides 54, provided at their lower ends with rail-engaging rollers. Pivotally mounted on each end of the cross-piece 50 is a lever 60, counterbalanced by means of a weight 63, provided at one end with an outer lever 62 which engages with reference wire a or band at the other end with a pointer which moves over a scale 57. The cross-piece 50 also carries a spirit level 56.