Patent ID: 7153078

Claim:
Loading and unloading station between a production facility and at least one railway car, comprising a plurality of workstations, a plurality of load units arranged to move in a path successively to each of the workstations, a plurality of load carriers, each of the load carriers is configured to support a vehicle body and to be unloaded at a first of the workstations from the at least one railway car on one of the load units, wherein each of the load units is sized and configured to carry at least two of the load carriers one above the other and to be supplied to the production facility from the at least one railway car in which the respective load carrier and vehicle bodies are arranged in a longitudinal direction of the at least one railway car, a plurality of loading carts arranged to be moved in the longitudinal direction, means for unloading a load unit from the at least one railway car in a direction transverse to the at least one railway car onto one of the loading carts and to move the loaded loading cart in the longitudinal direction to a second of the workstations at which a rotary table is adjacent to the loaded loading cart, means for moving the load unit carrying the vehicle bodies from the loaded loading cart onto the rotary table, turning the load unit in a direction transverse to the longitudinal direction and moving the load unit to a third of the workstations at which a transport device is located and arranged to move the load unit in the longitudinal direction, a fourth of the workstations comprising a destacking device to which the load unit is moved and configured to separate the load carriers on the load unit onto individual load carriers so as to be arranged one behind the other in the longitudinal direction, a fifth of the workstations comprising means for moving each of the vehicle bodies successively from its associated load carrier to the production facility and thereafter moving each load carrier from which the associated vehicle body has been moved in a direction transverse to the longitudinal direction to a sixth of the workstations comprising a conveyor arranged to transport the empty individual load carriers in the longitudinal direction, a seventh of the workstations configured to lift the empty individual load carriers and to place them one over the other to form a stack of at least four units and to rotate the stack into a position aligned with the longitudinal direction, and means for moving the stack to an eighth of the workstations at which the stack is moved onto a loading cart for being loaded into an empty railway car.