AU2003267001A1 - Method for production of a fixed railway track, fixed railway track and concrete support bed - Google Patents

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for production of a fixed railway track (7), in which the rails (5) are directly fixed to a concrete support bed (1) by means of a suitable rail fixing (4). Corresponding longitudinal channels (2) are produced in the concrete support bed (1) which are filled with a sealing mass (3) in a subsequent production step. After the sealing mass (3) has hardened, the rails (5) together with the rail fixings (4) can be mounted, adjusted and then fixed to the hardened sealing mass (3). According to the invention, it is also possible to firstly apply the rails (5) together with the rail fixing (4), such that the anchor bolts (6) of the rail fixings (4) extend into the longitudinal channels for sealing in situ with a sealing mass (3). In addition to said method for production of a fixed railway track (7), the invention also relates to a fixed railway track (7) produced by said method and a concrete support bed (1) for said fixed railway track (7).

Description

VERIFICATION OF TRANSLATION I, ................ S. . .. .. AJ............ ... ... ..... (insert translator's name) of Stefan Haberl, M.A. stoat. gepr. Dolmetscher und Obersetzer ..... ° ... ..... °.....................................................,°° Alte Bergstraf3e 433 86899 Landsberg/Lech Tel. 08191-944441 Fax 08191-985369 ............................................................................................. (translator's address) declare as follows: 1. That I am well acquainted with both the German and English languages, and 2. That the attached document is a true and correct translation made by me to the best of my knowledge and belief of: (a) The specification of International Bureau pamphlet numbered WO International Application No. PCT/EPO3/09226 . ............ ..................... . . o........ ate) Sign ure of Translator) (No witness required) NAUMBURGER BAUUNION GMBH & CO. KG PCT/EP 03/09226 A Method for Making a Slab Track Technical field The present invention relates to a method for making a slab track, and in particular a method in which the rails are not fixed in the usual way with sleepers on a reinforced concrete slab or in a concrete trough, but wherein the rails are directly fixed on a concrete bearing slab with suitable rail fasteners. Moreover, the present invention relates to a slab track and a concrete slab for such slab track which can be made using the method of the present invention. In some of the conventionally known production methods for slab tracks and in particular slab tracks for high-speed railway links as described in more detail below, after production of a concrete trough, a rail grid comprising sleepers and rails is placed, mounted, adjusted and concrete is poured around it. In this method known from the prior art, the rail grid must be adjusted with much effort and complexity, after which concrete is poured around it, as already mentioned. Because of the multiplicity of required production steps, these production methods of slab tracks of the prior art are very time consuming and consequently very expensive. Moreover, the slab tracks known from the prior art comprise a great number of different structural elements such as rails, concrete sleepers, filling concrete, concrete trough and sleeper fasteners comprising a base plate, an intermediate plate and an angular guiding plate, all of which must be individually mounted, aligned and adjusted, which leads to a very expensive mounting procedure. With this multitude of different structural elements, adjusting of the track to be built is made very difficult, since each structural element must be correctly aligned relative to the other elements to ensure the required track gauge and height. Background of the invention -2 It was as early as the late 1960s that the idea was conceived that with high speed railroad rails, the ballast of the ballast superstructure could be replaced by concrete or asphalt. The knowledge gained from a further development of this idea finally lead to the design of a slab track. In 1972, a first test section for a slab track was built in the Rheda WiedenbrOck station. The place name of Rheda gave the system its name of "Rheda Slab Track System". The "Rheda" system has proven useful over the last thirty years and has been further developed in a variety of ways. In the "Rheda" system, a concrete trough, in which a rail grid is fabricated, is formed on the subgrade with the aid of a slip form paver. The rail grid is provided with an additional longitudinal reinforcement and is brought into the correct position by adjustment spindles. After the rail grid has been correctly aligned within the trough, the filling concrete is filled into the trough, which is intended to fix the rail grid in place. This system is advantageous in that shorter and flatter reinforced concrete sleepers can be used than are common with a ballast superstructure. As already mentioned, the "Rheda" system has been redesigned and modified in various ways in the past. One of these variations will be briefly discussed in the following. A variation of the "Rheda" system is, for example, the "Heitkamp" system. This system also uses a concrete trough in which, as in the well-known ballast superstructure, a rail grid is placed, however, on ballast, where its vertical and lateral position is conventionally adjusted. The track supported on ballast is permanently fixed by pouring cement mortar into the ballast. Another variation of the "Rheda" system is, for example, the "Getrac" system, in which steel sleepers or conventional reinforced concrete sleepers are laid on an asphalt support layer which is made with a precisely adjusted height. In the "Getrac" system, the sleepers are fixed with the aid of dowel blocks held in recesses in the supporting layer and received in neoprene shoes at the bottom surface of the sleeper. The systems described so far are all point-supported systems having a wide variety of further variants which are all based, however, on the same basic idea of the "Rheda" system. Another embodiment known from the prior art is the continuous subbase of the tracks wherein a continuous support of the rails along the rail foot is -3 provided. Since in this system the point-wise resilience of the supporting points is eliminated, the track must be resiliently supported in a continuous fashion. The structure by means of continuous support of the track provides a seamless reinforced concrete layer having two symmetrical, rectangular "trenches". In these recesses, the railroad rails are laid on a resilient support. The remaining space on the side of the webs of the rails in the "trenches" is filled by pouring a permanently resilient pouring compound. Such systems are preferred for inner city railways, such as tramways or commuter trains. Such systems using continuous support are, however, not suitable for high-speed railways. Another possible structure are monolithically formed systems. These systems have a common feature in that their supporting concrete layer, which has the function of a road surface plate, is fabricated using slip form paving techniques. For example, in the "FFC" ("Feste Fahrbahn (slab track) Crailsheim") system, a continuous supporting concrete layer is fabricated that has the cross-section of a conventional sleeper as seen in profile. For the attachment of the rails, anchor dowels are vibrated into the freshly poured concrete, or drilled and glued in the concrete after setting. In the Heilit & W6mer system, the procedure is similar to the FFC system, with a difference, however, in that the rail fasteners are fit into a precisely made concrete support layer, or fixed by means of pre-drilled and glued dowels. There is a great number of further methods for manufacturing slab tracks which to describe, however, goes beyond the scope of the present application. Instead, reference is made to volume 70 entitled "Beitrage zum Bau von Landverkehrswegen; Festschrift anlasslich der Emeritierung von Herrn Univ.-Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joseph Eisenmann" ("Contributions for the construction of land traffic; commemorative publication for the retirement of Prof. Dr.-Ing. Joseph Eisenmann") of the series publication "Mitteilungen des Prifamtes fcr Bau von Landverkehrswegen der Technischen Universitat MLnchen", 1997, in which the most important systems are described. The methods known from the prior art for fabricating a slab track have a variety of advantages with respect to technology and economics. These are in particular the high quality of the track position attainable, which ensures a particularly -4 smooth ride of the rail vehicles. Due to the lateral fixing of the rail grid in a thrust resistant way, and due to the slab track, smaller radii and greater superelevations/banking are/is possible, which result in gradients better adjusted to the landscape as well as better travel comfort. Moreover, the slab track, due to its long lifetime and its very low maintenance cost, is also economically very interesting. The well known advantages of the slab track, over and above the ballast superstructure, are widely known and are only reduced by the high investment cost and longer construction times. In particular, the longer construction times are caused, however, by the great number of structural elements making up the slab track, as initially explained. This great number of different structural elements must always be individually adjusted and aligned so that the production techniques for the fabrication of slab tracks known from the prior art cannot be optimally automated, as is otherwise the case with the ballast superstructure. In the well known methods, relatively troublesome and complex adjusting processes have always been necessary for the alignment of the individual structural elements, which have tended to increase building complexity and therefore to reduce daily performance. The insertion of the filling concrete and its durable bonding to the concrete of the trough are also problematic. It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a production method for a slab track that facilitates a simpler, time-optimized and more precise fabrication of the track structure. The present invention is also intended to provide a system for a slab track structure and a concrete bearing slab for a slab track, which is simpler and more precise to fabricate than the systems known from the prior art. Presentation of the Invention In view of the fabrication problems associated with the prior art, fabrication techniques for slab tracks, including the associated troublesome adjusting effort of the rail grids, according to a first aspect of the present invention, a method for the fabrication of a slab track is provided wherein, in a first fabrication step, a concrete bearing slab with at least two equidistant longitudinal channels is fabricated. The concrete slab can be fabricated either directly on the subgrade or on a frost protection layer. As an alternative, it is also possible to make the concrete slab on a -5 hydraulically bound support layer. In order to keep the construction cost as small as possible, in this first step, the concrete bearing slab is made in a slip form paver. The concrete bearing slab itself, in a simple embodiment, can be made with a slack reinforcement. In order to achieve better strength characteristics of the concrete bearing slab, the concrete may comprise fiber-reinforced concrete, wherein steel, plastic, glass or similar fibers can be used, for example. In order to achieve further improvements in the concrete characteristics, in particular in tensile strength, and to improve the concrete's resistance against chemically aggressive environments, the concrete can be coated with synthetic resin or a synthetic resin may be added to the concrete as a binding agent. During this first step, at least two equidistant longitudinal channels are fabricated, at the same time having a distance of the track gauge of the slab track to be built. As will be explained in detail below, these channels, after having been filled with a pouring compound, serve to attach the rail fasteners, which in turn support the rails. Once the concrete bearing slab with the at least two equidistant longitudinal channels has been made, the at least two longitudinal channels can be filled with a pouring compound in a second fabrication step. In order to fix the rail fasteners on the longitudinal channels filled with the pouring compound as soon as the pouring compound has hardened, the pouring compound must have material characteristics enabling unproblematic mounting of the rail fasteners. Polymer pouring compounds have proven very suitable as the pouring compound, since the rail fasteners can be easily screwed onto such materials in their hardened state using, for example, self-tapping sleeper screws. Polyurethanes and polyethylenes have proven particularly useful. While in the case of a polymer compound as the pouring compound it may still be necessary to drill holes into the hardened pouring compound to provide holes for fixing the rail fastener by means of screws, these bores are much easier to make due to the material characteristics of the pouring compound than would be the case if they had to be drilled directly into the concrete. When there are particularly stringent requirements on the resistance and the strength of the pouring compound material, epoxy resins can also be very useful. Another advantage with the use of polymer compounds is that they have a -6 certain resilience and a very advantageous coefficient of thermal expansion aT SO that the completed track can be deformed in the case of a load temperature in twisty track portions, so that the forced tensions arising in the rails are non-existent or at least very small. Instead of synthetic polymers it is also possible to use polymeric pouring compounds, such as bitumen or other viscoelastic materials. The pouring compounds can also be provided with fillers, as necessary, which can be used to vary material characteristics and also to reduce the necessary amount of pouring compound. As has been indicated, it is possible immediately after hardening to begin with placing the rails provided with rail fasteners on the hardened pouring compound, to adjust them and then to screw them down on the hardened pouring compound, for example, with the aid of self-tapping sleeper screws. Preferably, combined sleeper screw anchors may also be used for the screw fastening of the rail fasteners, which, unlike the usual sleeper screws, do not have an integral screw head but have a thread at their heads onto which a threaded nut can be screwed. The use of such combined sleeper screw anchors is advantageous in particular in that they can be very easily used to effect a height correction. To do this, the crew nuts at the head need only be released a little so that the rail fastener can be lifted and a padding can be placed underneath. The threaded nuts can be tightened hereafter. In order to ensure a building flow that is as time-optimized as possible, for example, during hardening of the pouring compound, the rails can be provided with regularly spaced rail fasteners and can be connected with gauge spacers to make a temporary rail grid, which can then be placed on the concrete bearing slab and which can then be adjusted by means of an aligning machine and finally fixed on the hardened pouring compound. According to another particularly preferred embodiment of the present invention, concrete or mortar can of course also be used as a pouring compound for filling the longitudinal channels to receive the rails provided with rail fasteners. When concrete or mortar is used, the process steps may be slightly altered as compared with the above-described method using polymer compounds.

-7 When concrete or mortar is used, after the first fabrication step (making a concrete bearing slab with at least two equidistant longitudinal channels), at first the two longitudinal channels are filled with concrete or mortar into which the anchor bolts holding the rail fasteners together with the rails are pressed as long as the concrete or mortar has not yet hardened. As a final step, the rails are aligned. In the second step, instead of filling the two longitudinal channels with concrete or mortar, it is also possible to place, on the concrete slab, the rail fasteners provided with anchor bolts, which rail fasteners, in turn, support the rails in such a way that the anchor bolts extend into the longitudinal channels. The longitudinal channels can then be filled with concrete or mortar and the rails can be aligned. This alignment of the rails and in particular the alignment of the height position of the rails, as an alternative to the above-described alignment using paddings, can be carried out by bringing the rails into the correct height position by means of the aligning machine. In the case where the bottom surface of the rail fastener does not contact the top surface of the concrete bearing slab in this correct height position, the longitudinal channels are filled with pouring compound to such an extent that each longitudinal channel overflows and the pouring compound is flush with the bottom surface of the rail fastener. In this position, the rail grid is aligned by the alignment machine and then held by the gauge spacers until the pouring compound has hardened. In order to minimize this holding time period, fast-setting pouring compounds are particularly suitable. The concretes and mortars particularly suitable for the purpose of the present invention are primarily specialized concretes and specialized mortars having a maximum grain size of 6 mm. Mortars and concretes having short setting times are particularly useful, as mentioned above. Mortars and concretes with setting times of about 30 minutes or shorter, are preferable. In order for the material to fill even the smallest cavities when it is poured, it is desirable that the mortar or the concretes have excellent flow properties. Mortars and concretes are preferred, in particular, which have good self-compacting properties. Concretes or mortars are particularly suitable that have a slump of up to 55 cm. To achieve particular properties with the concretes or mortars used as the pouring compound, they can also be provided with -8 additives. Glass or steel fibers can also be added, for example, to increase tensile strength. As a particularly preferred material, the pouring mortar MAPEFILL® by MAPEI® can be used, for example, having a maximum grain size of 2.5 mm. This pouring mortar is particularly suitable because of its excellent flow properties so that compacting after pouring may be nearly completely eliminated. To keep costs as low as possible even when such specialized concretes or specialized mortars are used, loading fillers may be added. For example, MAPEFILL® can be used as a starting material, to which a filler or a loading material having a grain size of between 8 and 10 mm can be added. The proportion of the loading filler should, however, not exceed 30% against the base material MAPEFILL®. As can be seen from the preceding explanations, the fabrication method of the present invention is advantageous for a slab track in that troublesome adjusting procedures of the rail grid as known from the prior art, and the expensive application of filling concrete can be avoided with the present method. Moreover, the fabrication steps for making the slab track are largely minimized. As described above, the rail fasteners can be screwed onto the pouring compound by means of self-tapping screws, which makes the adjusting procedures known from the prior art largely superfluous. For attaching the rail fasteners on the pouring compound, other attachment elements may, of course, also be provided, which are driven into the pouring compound without it having to be pre-drilled. Examples of this are anchor bolts, which are pressed into the concrete or mortar before it has hardened and around which the concrete or mortar is poured. Once the concrete bearing slab including the hardened pouring compound has been completed, the rails temporarily held together by gauge spacers can be placed and slid into their final position, in which they are then fixed by means of self-tapping screws in the pouring compound. The labor-expensive pre-drilling and gluing of threaded bolts for attaching the rail fasteners can therefore be eliminated. According to another aspect of the present invention, not only one longitudinal channel but two longitudinal channels are provided to attach each rail, which are also filled with pouring compound. The two longitudinal channels are parallel and spaced -9 at about the width of the foot of the rail to be laid. Expressed differently, there is a concrete console between the two longitudinal channels having about the width of the rail foot to be mounted. This embodiment is particularly advantageous for economizing the pouring compound material since about a third of the required pouring compound can be eliminated. Since these pouring compounds are often very expensive, this embodiment has a considerable economic advantage because of the economical use of material. In order to economize even further on the pouring compound, as described before, the pouring compound can be provided with suitable fillers. According to another aspect, in the method of the present invention, the side walls of the longitudinal channels are provided with a profile which ensures that the fixed rails are secured against detaching forces. In addition to the property inherent in this profile of securing the rails against detaching forces, the profile also has great economic advantages. In order to achieve securing against detaching forces in the systems of the prior art by means of glued dowels, the dowel holes in which the dowels are then glued must be expensively drilled. This expensive drilling of concrete and subsequent gluing can be eliminated, since, with the insertion of the self-tapping screws in the hardened pouring compound which in turn is connected to the concrete bearing slab by positive engagement with the lateral profiles, the security against detaching forces is almost automatically ensured. The same effect is, of course, achieved in the method using mortars or concrete, in which the anchor bolts are pressed into the not yet hardened material and around which the pouring compound is poured. According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the rails are brought into gauge width by gauge spacers, to be then placed onto the concrete bearing slab with the aid of an aligning machine, subsequently adjusted and then screwed on. This approach by means of an aligning machine is particularly advantageous in that manual aligning is largely avoided and the whole process can be carried out almost automatically. As soon as the rails, pre-assembled in the gauge distance, have been received by the aligning machine, subsequent placement and screwing of the track can be carried out largely automatically. This is particularly advantageous in that with the aid of the aligning machine, the rails may be adjusted into the optimum position within certain limits which are determined by the width of the longitudinal channels, -10 wherein, as soon as the correct position has been achieved, they can be fixed at once by means of self-tapping screws. According to another aspect of the present invention, the rail fasteners are not placed directly on the concrete bearing slab or the filled longitudinal channels. Instead, the rail fasteners are supported on vibration damping, resilient damping elements. This vibration damping type of support is particularly advantageous in that it helps essentially to avoid the induction of waves into the half-space below the slab track. Such vibration damping is advantageous when the slab track is in inhabited areas in which the vibrations induced in the ground by passing trains are usually found disruptive. In view of the initially described problems associated with railroad tracks known from the prior art, according to another aspect of the present invention a slab track is suggested, comprising a concrete bearing slab having on its surface at least two equidistant longitudinal channels. The concrete bearing slab itself is usually of a concrete of a concrete quality B 35, according to ZTV Beton, which can have slack reinforcements of normal reinforcing steel BSt 500. It is, of course, also possible, such as in the case of higher stresses, to use concretes of a higher class of strength or, in the case of smaller stresses, to use concretes of lesser quality. The two equidistant longitudinal channels are spaced from each other at about the gauge distance of the track to be built and are filled with a pouring compound. The longitudinal channels have a width allowing a rail fastener to be attached on the pouring compound to be adjusted until its correct position is reached, in which it is then fixed together with the associated rail. Should a rail fastener be broken out of the pouring compound, the inventive design is particularly advantageous in that the attachment elements of the loose rail fastener only have to be fully released and the released rail fastener can be reattached on the pouring compound at a position slightly offset in the longitudinal direction. In the same way, the rail fastener may also easily be offset in the transverse direction. The longitudinal channels are filled by a pouring compound which has material properties of a kind which facilitate fixing of the track held at regular intervals by rail fasteners on the longitudinal channels filled with the pouring compound. Polymer -11 compounds are particularly suitable as the pouring compound, since the rail fasteners can be easily screwed onto it in its hardened state, for example using self tapping sleeper screws. Polyurethanes and polyethylene are particularly suitable. With particularly stringent requirements on the resistance and the strength of the pouring compound, epoxy resins can also be highly suitable. Another advantage with the use of polymer compounds is that they have a certain resilience and a very advantageous coefficient of thermal expansion aT so that the completed track can be deformed in the case of a load temperature in twisty track portions, so that the forced tensions arising in the rails are non-existent or at least very small. Instead of synthetic polymers it is also possible to use polymeric pouring compounds, such as bitumen or other viscoelastic materials. The pouring compounds can also be provided with fillers, as necessary, which can be used on the one hand to vary material characteristics and on the other hand to reduce the necessary amount of pouring compound. According to another particularly preferable embodiment, concrete or mortar can of course also be used as a pouring compound for filling the longitudinal channels to receive the rails provided with rail fasteners. When concrete or mortar is used, the two longitudinal channels filled with concrete or mortar receive the anchor bolts which hold the rail fasteners together with the rails. To achieve particular properties with the concretes or mortars used as the pouring compound, they can also be provided with additives. Glass or steel fibers can also be added, for example, to increase tensile strength. As a particularly preferred material, the pouring mortar MAPEFILL® by MAPEI® can be used, for example, with a maximum grain size of 2.5 mm. This pouring mortar is particularly suitable because of its excellent flow properties so that compacting after pouring may be nearly completely eliminated. To keep costs as low as possible even when such specialized concretes or specialized mortars are used, suitable loading fillers may be added. For example, MAPEFILL® can be used as a starting material, to which a filler or a loading material having a grain size of between 8 and 10 mm can be added. The proportion of the loading filler should, however, not exceed 30% against the base material MAPEFILL®.

-12 According to another aspect, each rail is positioned between two longitudinal channels filled with pouring compound and fixed thereon. In this embodiment it is provided that the rail is not attached on a wide channel filled with pouring compound, but to fix each rail on two individual channels which extend to the right and left of the rail foot of each rail in the longitudinal direction. The two longitudinal channels are separated from each other by a concrete console, which has about the width of the rail foot. This embodiment is particularly advantageous in that by separating the longitudinal channels by the concrete console a third of the required pouring compound can be eliminated. Since these pouring compounds are often very expensive, this embodiment has a considerable economic advantage because of the economical use of material. According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the rails are screwed onto each filled longitudinal channel by means of self-tapping screws to the right and left of each rail. Because of this screwing by means of self-tapping sleeper screws, the exceedingly expensive anchoring of the rails by means of drilled and glued sleeper anchors of the prior art is avoided. This conventional, mostly very complex and expensive type of attachment by means of glued and pre-drilled sleeper anchors can also be avoided by the embodiment of the present invention employing concrete or mortar as the pouring compound, wherein the anchor bolts of the rail fastener are pressed into the pouring compound or around which the pouring compound is poured. According to a particularly preferred embodiment of the slab track, the concrete bearing slab is fabricated with the aid of a slip form paver. Due to the cross section, which remains essentially the same in the longitudinal direction of the concrete bearing slab, it has proven to be particularly advantageous to use a slip form paver for the fabrication of the concrete bearing slab, since this helps to minimize the construction cost. The fabrication of the concrete bearing slab by means of a slip form paver is, moreover, particularly advantageous in that with this production method, profiles can be simultaneously provided in the side walls of the longitudinal channels. These profiles help to ensure that the rails fixed on the hardened pouring compound are secured against detaching forces.

-13 According to another embodiment of the present invention, the rail fasteners for attaching the rails on the concrete bearing slab are supported on vibration absorbing resilient damping elements on the concrete bearing slab. This embodiment of the slab track is particularly suited to railroads in the vicinity of inhabited areas, since with such a vibration absorbing support, the induction of vibrations into the ground can be largely avoided. The problems described initially in the present application associated with the prior art can be largely eliminated according to the present invention with a concrete bearing slab for a slab track, comprising a reinforced concrete base slab having paired recesses on its top surface. The recesses are each filled with a pouring compound so that on these recesses, after hardening of the pouring compound, a rail can be fixed by means of corresponding rail fasteners. According to a particular embodiment, the recesses can first be filled with a pouring compound, on which a rail is then fixed by means of corresponding rail fasteners with the aid of anchor bolts by pressing the anchor bolts into the pouring compound before it is completely hardened. According to a particular embodiment of this concrete bearing slab, the recesses on the top surface of the concrete bearing slab are formed as longitudinal channels so that the concrete bearing slab can be fabricated in a single construction step with the aid of a slip form paver. Of course it is also possible to provide pocket hole type recesses by drilling or milling on the top surface of the concrete bearing slab, on which, after filling with a corresponding pouring compound and after hardening, the rails can be screwed using rail fasteners. According to another aspect of the present invention, the concrete bearing slab has two longitudinal channels for attaching each single rail on its top surface. The two recesses for attaching each single rail are positioned in such a way that the rails to be attached can be fixed right and left of their rail foot with the aid of corresponding rail fasteners on the pouring compound in the recesses. In this construction, the paired recesses must have a distance from each other that corresponds to about the foot width of the rail profile used. Since, for fixing the rails according to this embodiment, paired recesses are provided which are separated from each other by a concrete console, the necessary amount of pouring compound -14 can be reduced by about a third, which is very advantageous from an economic point of view because of the very expensive pouring compound material. According to yet another aspect of the present invention, the recesses longitudinal channels or pocket hole type recesses - are provided with profiles at their side walls. This embodiment ensures that a slab track using such a concrete bearing slab is secured against detaching track forces by having the pouring compound, for example a polymer compound, interlock with the profiling, so that the detaching forces originating from the rails can be securely dissipated into the concrete bearing slab. Short description of the drawings To provide a better understanding and for further explanation, a plurality of exemplary embodiments of the present invention will be described in the following with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Fig. 1 is a flow diagram of the method of the present invention for fabricating a slab track; Fig. 2 is a plan view of a detail of a slab track according to a first embodiment; Fig. 3 is a cross-sectional view along line A-A of Fig. 2; Fig. 4 is a plan view of a detail of a slab track according to a second embodiment; Fig. 5 is a cross-sectional view along line A-A of Fig. 4 of the second embodiment; Fig. 6 is a cross-sectional view of a further embodiment using a vibration absorbing resilient damping element; Fig. 7 shows a slab track in a cross-sectional view.

-15 The same reference numerals have been used to designate the same elements in the drawings throughout. Description of the exemplary embodiments of the invention Fig. 1 shows a flow diagram of the individual process steps necessary for fabricating a slab track 7. In a first fabrication step 11, a concrete bearing slab 1 with at least two equidistant longitudinal channels 2 is made. Concrete bearing slab 1 is preferably made in a slip form paver so that in this first step the equidistant longitudinal channels 2 in concrete bearing slab 1 can be made at the same time. Longitudinal channels 2 in concrete bearing slab 1 are provided so that after filling with a pouring compound 3 in one of the following steps, rails 5 can be fixed. In a second process step 12, the longitudinal channels 2 of concrete bearing slab 1 made in the first process step 11 are filled with a pouring compound 3, preferably a polyurethane. As soon as this pouring compound 3 has hardened, a rail provided with rail fasteners 4 can be placed on at least one filled longitudinal channel 2 in a third step 13. In a fourth and last step 14, at least one rail 5 is adjusted on the hardened pouring compound 3 and fixed. With this fourth process step 14, the fabrication of the slab track 7 according to the invention has been completed. As an alternative, before the third above-described process step 13, vibration absorbing resilient damping elements 9 can be placed on the concrete bearing slab 1 in those places where the rail fasteners 4 together with rail 5 are to be fixed on the hardened pouring compound 3, on which damping elements 9, the rail fasteners 4 are fixed together with rails 5. Instead of the method described here in detail, it is also possible, as initially described, to use concrete or mortar as said pouring compound 3. In this case, the anchor bolts 6 of rail fasteners 4 holding rails 5 are pressed in the concrete or mortar while it is still soft. Alternatively, anchor bolts 6 can be surrounded by pouring compound after rails 5 have been placed onto longitudinal channels 2. Fig. 2 shows a plan view of a detail of a slab track 7, comprising a concrete bearing slab 1 and a rail 5 screwed onto it. As can be better seen from the cross- -16 sectional view along line A-A according to Fig. 3, concrete bearing slab 1 is reinforced with concrete-reinforcing steel 8, such as BSt 500, in the transverse and longitudinal directions. Concrete bearing slab 1 has a recess 2 with an essentially rectangular cross-section, which in the present invention is also referred to as a longitudinal channel 2. As can be seen from Fig. 2, longitudinal channel 2 extends in the longitudinal direction of slab track 7 in parallel to the track to be built. The side walls of longitudinal channel 2 have a lateral profile as can be seen in Fig. 3. Longitudinal channel 2 is filled with a pouring compound 3 flush with the top edge of concrete bearing slab 1, preferably with a polyurethane or a pouring mortar. A rail 5 is fixed on hardened pouring compound 3 by means of rail fasteners 4. The rail profile used with high speed track rails, is preferably the UIC 60 profile. The rail profile 5 supported by rail fasteners 4 is screwed down on hardened pouring compound 3 by means of self-tapping screws 6. If the pouring compound is for example a pouring concrete, anchor bolts 6 for fixing rail fasteners 4 are pressed in the pouring compound while it is still soft, or the compound is filled in around them. If a rail fastener 4 is broken or torn out of pouring compound 3, the present invention is particularly advantageous in that the broken out rail fastener 4 can be simply offset in the longitudinal direction after the sleeper screws 6 have been released and can easily be re-fixed at a slightly offset position. Figs. 4 and 5 show a plan view and a cross-sectional view, respectively, of a detail of a modified embodiment of Figs. 2 and 3. As can be seen in Fig. 4 and in particular in Fig. 5, the present embodiment is distinguished from the previously described embodiment in that two slightly narrower longitudinal channels 2' are provided in concrete bearing slab 1 instead of a wide longitudinal channel 2. As can be seen in Fig. 5, these two longitudinal channels 2' are separated by a concrete console which has about the width of the rail 5 to be fixed thereon. This embodiment is very advantageous because of the material economy of the pouring compound 3 since pouring compound 3 is usually very expensive. For this reason it is desirable to economize on the pouring compound 3 as much as possible, as is ensured with the present embodiment. In order to economize even more on the pouring compound, it would also be conceivable not to provide continuous longitudinal channels 2' but only -17 to provide pocket hole type recesses in the rail fastener positions which are then filled with pouring compound and onto which the rail fasteners are then screwed. Fig. 6 shows another embodiment of the slab track 7 of the present invention having a concrete bearing slab 1 and a longitudinal channel 2 provided therein which is filled with a pouring compound 3. The characterizing feature of this embodiment is that the rail fastener 4 is not directly screwed down on pouring compound 3 but is separated therefrom by a vibration absorbing resilient damping element 9. This damping element 9 can either be a separate structural element, such as an elastomeric pad, which is placed at individual points at each screwing position on the hardened pouring compound 3 prior to screwing the rail fasteners 4. It is also possible, however, for the damping elements 9 to be part of rail fasteners 4 so that damping elements 9 need not be separately positioned, which enables a further reduction of the work involved with the fabrication of a slab track 7. Instead of positioning the damping elements 9 below the rail fastener, it is, of course, also possible to place them between the bottom surface of the rail foot and the top surface of rail fastener 4. Fig. 7 shows slab track 7 in a cross-sectional view. As can be clearly seen, two separate longitudinal channels 2' are provided per rail 5 in concrete bearing slab 1 in symmetry about longitudinal axis of each rail 5. Instead of the two longitudinal channels 2' for each rail 5, it is also possible, according to the embodiment shown in Figs. 2 and 3, to provide only one wide longitudinal channel 2 for each rail. Concrete bearing slab 1 itself, in the present embodiment, is of a concrete with concrete quality B 35 according to ZTV Beton, which is reinforced with slack concrete-reinforcing steel BSt 500. It is, of course, also possible, such as in the case of higher stresses, to use concretes of a higher class of strength or, in the case of smaller stresses, concretes of lesser quality. Since in the present invention a high-quality slab track is provided, it is particularly suitable for high-speed links, so that as rail profile 5, at least in the area of Deutsche Bundesbahn, the UIC 60 and S 54 rail profiles are used. For railroads with smaller stresses, it is, of course, also possible to use profiles of lesser quality, such as the S 49 or S 41 profiles.

Claims (43)

1. A method for fabricating a slab track, comprising the steps of: - making a concrete bearing slab (1) with at least two equidistant longitudinal channels (2), - filling the at least two longitudinal channels (2) with a pouring compound (3), - placing at least one rail (5) provided with rail fasteners (4) on at least one of said longitudinal channels (2), - adjusting and fixing the at least one rail provided with rail fasteners (4) on the hardened pouring compound (3).

2. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that the filling of the at least two longitudinal channels (2) with a pouring compound (3) is done prior to placing the at least one rail (5) provided with rail fasteners (4).

3. The method according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said rails (5) are jointly placed in the form of a rail grid temporarily connected by gauge spacers.

4. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 3, characterized in that each said rail (5) is positioned between two longitudinal channels (2') filled with pouring compound (3) and fixed on either side on said filled longitudinal channels (2').

5. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that for fixing said rails (5) attachment elements (6) are driven into said pouring compound (3).

6. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that said rails (5) are screwed down with sleeper screws (6) on either side of each rail (5) on each filled longitudinal channel (2, 2').

7. The method according to claim 6, -19 characterized in that said rails (5) are screwed down by means of self-tapping sleeper screws (6).

8. The method according to any one of claims 6 or 7, characterized in that for screw fastening said rails (5), combined sleeper screw anchors are used.

9. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 5, characterized in that said rails (5) are fixed with anchor bolts (6) on either side of each rail (5) on at least each filled longitudinal channel (2, 2').

10. The method according to claim 9, characterized in that said anchor bolts (6) are pressed into the pouring compound (3) while it is still soft.

11. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 10, characterized in that said longitudinal channels (2, 2') are provided with a profile securing the fixed rails (5) against detaching forces.

12. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 11, characterized in that said longitudinal channels (2, 2') are filled with a polymer compound.

13. The method according to claim 12, characterized in that said polymer compound comprises at least one of the group comprising polyurethane, polyethylene, epoxy resin and bitumen.

14. The method according to claim 1, characterized in that said filling of the at least two longitudinal channels (2) with a pouring compound (3) is carried out after placing the at least one rail (5) provided with rail fasteners (4).

15. The method according to claim 14, characterized in that during said filling of the at least two longitudinal channels (2) with pouring compound (3) the anchor bolts (6) of rail fasteners (4) are - 20 surrounded with pouring compound in the at least two longitudinal channels (2).

16. The method according to any one of claims 9, 10, 14 or 15, characterized in that said longitudinal channels (2) are filled with a concrete or mortar.

17. The method according to claim 16, characterized in that the mortar is a pouring mortar.

18. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 17, characterized in that said concrete bearing slab (1) is made with a slip form paver.

19. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 18, characterized in that at least the placing and the adjusting of said rails (5) is carried out with the aid of an aligning machine.

20. The method according to claim 19, characterized in that the fixing of said rails (5) is carried out in the same step as said placing and said adjusting with the aid of said aligning machine.

21. The method according to any one of claims 1 to 20, characterized in that said rail fasteners (4) are supported on vibration absorbing resilient damping elements (9).

22. A slab track, comprising a concrete bearing slab (1) having provided on its top surface at least two equidistant longitudinal channels (2) filled with a pouring compound (3), and two rails (5), each rail (5) being fixed, by means of rail fasteners (4), on at least one of said longitudinal channels (2) filled with pouring compound (3).

23. The slab track according to claim 21, -21 characterized in that each rail (5) is positioned between each two longitudinal channels (2') filled with pouring compound (3) and fixed on either side on said two filled longitudinal channels (2').

24. The slab track according to any one of claims 21 or 22, characterized in that each rail (5) is fixed on said pouring compound (3) by means of attachment elements (6) which are directly driven into said pouring compound (3).

25. The slab track according to any one of claims 21 or 23, characterized in that each rail (5) is screwed down by means of self-tapping sleeper screws (6) on either side of each rail (5) on each filled longitudinal channel (2, 2').

26. The slab track according to claim 25, characterized in that each rail (5) is screwed down my means of combined sleeper screw anchors.

27. The slab track according to claim 26, characterized in that each rail (5) is screwed down by means of rail fasteners (4) on each filled longitudinal channel (2, 2').

28. The slab track according to any one of claims 22 to 25, characterized in that each rail (5) is fixed on either side of each rail (5) by means of anchor bolts (6) on each filled longitudinal channel (2, 2').

29. The slab track according to any one of claims 22 to 28, characterized in that said concrete bearing slab (1) is made with a slip form paver.

30. The slab track according to any one of claims 22 to 29, characterized in that said longitudinal channels (2, 2') are provided with a profile at their side walls for securing said fixed rails (5) against detaching forces. - 22

31. The slab track according to any one of claims 22 to 30, characterized in that said pouring compound (3) is a polymeric compound.

32. The slab track according to claim 31, characterized in that said polymeric compound comprises at least one of the group comprising polyurethane, polyethylene, epoxy resin and bitumen.

33. The slab track according to any one of claims 22, 23, 24 or 28, characterized in that the pouring compound (3) is a mortar or concrete.

34. The slab track according to claim 33, characterized in that the pouring compound (3) is a pouring mortar.

35. The slab track according to claim 33 or 34, characterized in that the mortar has a maximum grain size of 10 mm.

36. The slab track according to claim 33 to 35, characterized in that the mortar has a slump of up to about 55 cm.

37. The slab track according to any one of claims 22 to 36, characterized in that said rail fasteners (4) are supported on vibration absorbing resilient damping elements (9).

38. A concrete bearing slab for a slab track (7), comprising a concrete base slab having provided on its top surface at least two recesses (2) in pairs and filled with a pouring compound (3) on which a rail (5) is fixable by means of rail fasteners (4).

39. The concrete bearing slab according to claim 38, characterized in that the recesses are formed as longitudinal channels (2).

40. The concrete bearing slab according to any one of claims 38 or 39, characterized in that, for attaching each rail (5), two longitudinal channels (2') are provided in said concrete bearing slab (1).

41. The concrete bearing slab according to any one of claims 38 to 40, -23 characterized in that said recesses (2) are provided with profiles on their side walls.

42. The concrete bearing slab according to any one of claims 38 to 41, characterized in that said recesses (2) are filled with one of the materials of the group comprising polyurethane, polyethylene, epoxy resin, bitumen, concrete and mortar.

43. The concrete bearing slab according to claim 42, characterized in that said pouring compound (3) is provided with an additive from the group comprising glass fibers, steel fibers and fillers.