Patent ID: 6877931

Claim:
A tamping tine for a tamping machine for tamping ballast underneath a railroad track, the tamping tine extending in a longitudinal direction and being movable in a tamping direction, comprising: a shank having a lower end and, with reference to the tamping direction, a front portion and a rear portion; a tine plate at said lower end of said shank, said tine plate having a bottom edge, spaced from said shank, a top edge, and, with reference to the tamping direction, a front surface and a rear surface, said rear surface and said shank forming a common shank end line extending parallel to said bottom edge of said tine plate; an inclined tine surface extending in a plane enclosing an acute angle with said front surface of said tine plate and intersecting an entire said rear portion of said shank along a shank section line, said inclined tine surface being delimited, with respect to the longitudinal direction, by said bottom edge of said tine plate and by said shank section line, said inclined tine surface having an upper end point at a maximum spacing from said bottom edge of said tine plate; and a reference line on said inclined tine surface defined by an intersection of said inclined tine surface with a reference plane extending perpendicularly to said front surface and along said top edge of said tine plate, said reference line being spaced farther from said upper end point of said inclined tine surface than from said shank end line.