Within a month of winning a contract to supply a jacking system for a train maintenance depot in Malaysia, as reported in the last issue of HOIST, Pfaff-silberblau had picked up another train jacking contract, this time for the Belgian State railway, SNCB.
The SNCB order is for nine lifting systems for a new maintenance facility in Antwerp. One installation incorporates 12 screw jacks while the other eight are each equipped with four screw jacks. These are used for servicing and repairing locomotives weighing up to 100t each.
The total of 44 jacks, each about 5m high and with a 25t load capacity, have a 2.75m usable lifting range at a lifting rate of 240mm/minute. They are equipped with electrically powered, hydraulically driven rail wheels. The performance of the load raising motors is 3kW and that of the drive motors for moving along auxiliary rails is 0.25kW. The position of the load arm may be varied in a horizontal direction by a maximum of 645mm, by means of a hand wheel. The height of the load-bearing console varies from 900mm in its lowest position to 3,650mm in its highest position.
The entire installation must be capable of operating in a vehicle washing plant and therefore requires good corrosion protection to withstand exposure to powerful water jets.
The installation was delivered in stages during August and September in step with the overall progress of the construction work.
The Malaysian contract, awarded to Pfaff by Siemens Verkehrstechnik (Transportation Systems) of Germany, is for the provision of an underfloor lifting system in the train maintenance shed of the new Express Rail Link (ERL). The ERL will connect the railway station in downtown Kuala Lumpur with the new airport.
The order includes the supply of two under floor bogie hoists as well as four manual turntables, 16 lifting jacks each of 12.5t capacity and four jacks rated at 20t each. The new maintenance facility is due for completion by August 2001 and should become operational by the third quarter of 2001.
The underfloor hoist system is designed to aid the speedy removal of the so-called Jacobs bogies and other vehicle components. It consists of five platforms capable of lifting vehicles weighing up to a maximum of 115t as well as five body supports capable of taking the weight of the vehicle body on its chassis.
The wheel hoists are controlled to operate synchronously within a tolerance of +/-3mm. The hoists are designed to cope with differences in the distance between the bogie axles and for loads of up to 9t per hoist. The detached bogies can be readily moved to other areas of the workshop by means of four manual turntables.
Both contracts were worth between about E700,000 and E800,000.
