EP0385828A1 - Arrangement for maintaining a track for rail laying portal cranes, and method for laying a track by means of said arrangement - Google Patents

Abstract

Arrangement for the handling of a runway for track-laying portal cranes from said portal cranes, the said runway being formed of sections. It comprises a girder (2) for handling said sections, whose carrier elements (23) have fixed to them rails (21) for guiding lifting gear, and elements (25) formed by rail elements similar to the rails (21), which are movable between a rest position for which the ends of the handling girder (2) have a width (l) which is less than the available space inside the portal cranes, and a working position for which the said portal cranes are arranged in the extension of the said rails (21), the handling girder (2) then having, at its ends, a width (L) greater than (l), (L) being the necessary spacing for the runway of the portal cranes. <IMAGE>

Description

The present invention relates generally to the laying of railways.

Usually, when laying rail tracks, whether laying a new track or laying a new track to replace a worn track, gantry cranes wider than the width are used of the way. These gantry cranes are such that they can overlap wagons in order to load or unload them into track elements (sleepers, rails or even pre-constituted track sections, the rails being assembled on the sleepers).

The gantry cranes are self-propelled machines, some are provided with wheels with tires in order to roll on the laying platform but those most commonly used are provided with rolling means in the form of a roller and a raceway must be intended for them.

The raceway of said gantries is very often formed by long welded rails intended for the track that we are going to set up.

When the long rails are thus used as a raceway for the gantry cranes, it is necessary to position the said rails at the spacing required for the passage of the gantry cranes and then, using a substitute machine, to take them back in order to position them on the sleepers.

This method has many drawbacks.

On the one hand this requires multiple manipulations of said long rails, but moreover it is sometimes necessary to provide for wedging said rails if the laying platform is not perfectly adjusted or if it threatens to sag.

On the other hand, the laying of long rails on the platform requires the existence of a way for the running of the laying train; a provisional track must therefore be put in place when laying a new track.

Another drawback of this method is that it cannot of course be implemented when the track to be installed does not have long welded rails.

A method has already been proposed according to which the gantries roll on a raceway constituted by profiles put in place and deposited by the gantries themselves, but this is little used because the installation of the profiles at the desired spacing for the raceway poses a problem that is still poorly resolved.

Indeed, the gantries are generally in the form of an inverted U positioned transversely to the raceway in order to rest by rollers located at the lower ends of the branches of the U on said raceway. The two branches of the U are elements of fairly large dimensions since they are constituted by jacks ensuring the variation in height of the gantry. An engine control station allowing the gantry to move is also provided on one of the two branches of the U.

It is then understood that the width available inside the gantry is less than the spacing of the raceway thereof. It is then difficult to carry the profiles from the upper crossbar thereof and to place them at the necessary spacing for the raceway.

This is why, the present invention tends to solve this problem by proposing an arrangement for handling a raceway for gantries for laying railway tracks from said gantries, said raceway being formed from profiles, characterized in that that it comprises a beam for handling said profiles to the load-bearing elements to which are fixed hoist guide rails and elements formed by similar rail elements to the rails, movable between a rest position for which the ends of the handling beam have a width (l) less than the space available inside the gantry cranes and a working position for which said portions are arranged in the extension of said rails, the handling beam then having, at its ends, a width (L) greater than (l), (L) being the spacing necessary for the raceway of the gantries.

The use of a handling beam thus arranged in order to allow the use of hoists which can move between the internal space of the gantries (l) and an extreme position for which they are in place to lay the raceway (L ), makes it possible to install and remove said raceway easily and quickly.

According to another aspect of the invention, the profiles are, quite interestingly, made from sheet piles which, by the width of their flat bottom, to lay them on even unprepared ground.

The present invention also relates to the method of laying such a raceway as well as a method of laying a railway track implementing such a raceway.

• La figure 1 est une vue de face d'un portique;
• La figure 2 est une vue de côté d'une poutre de manutention des profilés;
• La figure 3 est une vue de dessus de ladite poutre de manutention;
• La figure 4 est une vue en coupe suivant la ligne IV-IV de la figure 5 d'un profilé;
• La figure 5 est une vue partielle de dessus d'un profilé, à échelle réduite;
• La figure 6 montre un palonnier destiné à la manutention des profilés;
• La figure 7 montre schématiquement la pose du chemin de roulement;
• La figure 8 montre schématiquement la pose d'une voie;
• La figure 9 montre schématiquement la dépose du chemin de roulement.

The present invention will be better understood and other advantages of it will emerge from the description which follows of an example of implementation thereof with reference to the drawings in which:

• Figure 1 is a front view of a gantry;
• Figure 2 is a side view of a profile handling beam;
• Figure 3 is a top view of said handling beam;
• Figure 4 is a sectional view along line IV-IV of Figure 5 of a profile;
• Figure 5 is a partial top view of a profile, on a reduced scale;
• FIG. 6 shows a spreader intended for the handling of profiles;
• Figure 7 schematically shows the installation of the raceway;
• Figure 8 shows schematically the laying of a track;
• Figure 9 schematically shows the removal of the raceway.

We see in Figure 1, a gantry 1 which is, in a manner known per se, in the general form of an inverted U. It rests by rollers 12 provided at the lower ends of the vertical branches 11 of the U on a raceway not shown.

We see at 13 the cylinders for moving the transverse beam 14 between the high position shown in solid lines and the low position shown in dotted lines.

One of the branches 11 carries a control station 15 for the hydraulic motor M of the gantry 1 as well as for the control of the jacks 13 and other equipment that it carries. In service, two gantries 1 are paired as seen for example in Figures 7, 8 and 9.

The gantries 1 can carry equipment thanks to the attachment means 16.

As shown, each gantry crane 1 is equipped with removable cross-pieces 17 making it possible to constitute temporary storage areas 18 whose usefulness will be explained below.

For handling the profiles which must constitute the raceway for the gantry cranes 1, a handling beam 2, visible in FIGS. 2 and 3, is attached to the hooking means 16.

As indicated above, the gantries 1 are used in pairs, this is why the beam 2 has loops 26 for its attachment to the hooking means 16 in two distinct zones preferably situated symmetrically with respect to its medium.

Usually, said handling beam 2 comprises two load-bearing elements 23 held in relation to each other by cross-pieces 24. The beam 2 is thus generally rectangular and its width is less than the space available between the vertical branches 11 of the gantries which carry it.

In order to ensure the handling of the sections with such a beam 2, two hoists 22 movable on longitudinal rails 21 have been associated with it, fixed for this purpose on said load-bearing elements 23.

So that it is possible to put in place with such a beam 2 elements spaced apart by the distance (L) necessary for the raceway of the gantries 1, there are provided according to the invention at the ends of the beam 2 portions 25 movable, said rails 21.

We see in Figure 3, in solid lines, the right end of the beam 2 with said portions 25 in the rest position and the left end of said beam with said portions 25 in the working position. Note that when these portions 25 are in the working position, the end of the beam then has a width (L) whereas when these portions 25 are in the rest position, the end of the beam has a width (L) .

It can be seen in FIGS. 2 and 3 that said portions 25 are formed by rail elements similar to rails 21. These elements 25 are mounted movably on the carrier elements 23 by supports 27 of generally triangular shape. Each element 25 being carried by two supports 27.

The supports 27 are carried by the carrier elements 23, along one of their sides, around a vertical axis 28, they can thus pivot around their axes 28 between a position for which they are against the carrier element 23 as on the right of FIG. 3 and a position for which they are perpendicular to the support element 23 as on the left of FIG. 3.

The supports 27 carry, by the apex opposite to the side by which they are mounted on the carrier element 23, the elements 25 by portions of vertical axes 29.

The carrier element 23, the supports 27 and the element 25 thus form deformable parallelograms.

In the working position, shown on the left in FIG. 3, the end of the element 25 directed towards the center of the beam is positioned against the end of the rail 21 in extension thereof so that the hoist 22 can run from said rail 21 to element 25.

As can be seen in the figures, the element 25 has a very flat S-shape in order to ensure a connection without sharp angles between the portions of rails located at different distances.

It is understood that by such arrangements, the hoists 22 can carry elements and position them at a distance (L) from one another when they arrive at the end of the beam 2 in the working position while when the beam 2 has its ends in the rest position it can be overlapped by the gantries 1 so as to be taken up by the attachment means 16.

Figures 4 and 5 show the profiles intended to form the raceway of the gantries 1.

According to the invention, sheet piles such as those used in construction are used for the manufacture of these profiles to create earth retaining walls.

These sheet piles are interesting for creating a raceway according to the invention because they have, in section, the shape of a bowl with a wide flat bottom 31 and low vertical edges 32.

Indeed, the presence of the wide flat bottom 31 ensures good stability of said sheet pile when it rests on the ground by said bottom and this even on unprepared soils.

Usually, the sheet piles 3 are rectangular, their length being much greater than their width.

The flanges 32 are connected to the bottom 31 by an oblique wall 33 and have their upper end folded back into the butt 34 in order to give good rigidity to the sheet pile 3.

So that these sheet piles serve as a raceway, an inverted U-shaped section is welded axially in order to form an axial groove 35 of dimensions such that the rollers 12 of the gantry cranes 1 can collaborate by their circumferential groove 19 with it.

At points not far from its center, the sheet pile 3 has four bridges 37 intended for hooking it to a lifting beam for handling.

At one end of the sheet pile 3, the rib 35 carries an end piece 38 intended to fit into the end of the rib bearing no end piece of the neighboring sheet pile 3 to ensure proper positioning of the sheet piles 3 by compared to others when they form the gantry track 1.

We see in Figure 6 the spreader 4 for handling sheet piles 3 as they have just been described.

The lifter 4 has a ring 41 by which it can be hung on the hoist 22 of the beam 2. Its parallelepiped body 42 ends in two faces 43 which are perpendicular to it and which carry pins 44, all directed in the same direction, intended to engage under the bridges 37 of the sheet pile 3.

Stop means 45 are provided in order to prevent any movement of the studs 44 relative to the bridges 37 when the lifter 4 transports a sheet pile 3.

Figures 7 to 9 will show an example of the use of a handling arrangement as described above.

In this example, we want to lay a new track formed of track sections. An arrow F indicates the direction of progress of the site.

For this purpose, we put, figure 7, the path of bearing of the gantries 1. We can see that for this purpose sheet piles 3 are stored in the volumes 18 created by the removable sleepers 17 of the gantries 1, the handling beam 2 is hooked to the gantries with its movable elements 25 in the working position .

We then take the sheet piles 3 using the lifting beams 4 described above hooked to the hoists 22 then, by displacement of said hoists on the rails 21, 25, they are put in place at the front of the gantries in order to create the path of rolling.

When a long length of raceway is thus created, the handling beam 2 is deposited at the front end of said raceway. The elements 25 of its end facing the raceway are brought back to the rest position so that the gantries 1 can overlap it in order to go to the rear end of the raceway. The cross members 17 are dismantled in order to free the internal space of said gantries.

We see in Figure 8 the gantry cranes 1 positioned on the wagon transporting them to the site.

Once unloaded on their track, the gantries 1 circulate in order to unload the track elements 5 carried by wagons 8. We see that for this purpose said gantries overlap the wagons 8 and their loading, and, this is why the cross members 17 have been dismantled.

The track elements 5 are positioned inside the raceway and then spliced.

When the new track has been laid over a length substantially equal to the raceway, the gantries 1 are brought above the beam 2 which is then taken up. The cross members 17 are reassembled and the gantries go to the other end of the raceway in order to ensure removal, FIG. 9.

To this end, the sheet piles 3 are lifted by the lifting beams 4 and stacked in the storage volumes 18. Once the raceway removed, it is again placed as in FIG. 7 at the front of the new path.

We can easily understand that we could use the same equipment to remove an old track, it would be enough for a train of empty wagons to be parked in front of the gantry cranes.

We would install the raceway in the same way, then, the beam 2 and the sleepers would be placed on a train wagon located at the front, or on the wagon intended for the routing of gantries.

The gantry cranes would then shuttle between the empty train at the front which they would load with deposited track elements and the train at the rear in order to unload the new track elements. The new track can also be formed in a known manner by sleepers, for example concrete, on which are deposited long rails welded directly in place, for example by pulling them through gantries.

Claims (10)

1. Arrangement for the handling of a raceway for gantries for laying railway tracks from said gantries, said raceway being formed from profiles, characterized in that it comprises a handling beam (2), from said profiles to the supporting elements (23) from which are fixed rails (21) for guiding hoists (22) and elements (25) formed by rail elements similar to the rails (21), movable between a rest position for which the ends of the handling beam (2) have a width (l) less than the space available inside the gantries and a working position for which said portions are arranged in the extension of said rails (21), the beam handling (2) then having, at its ends, a width (L) greater than (l), (L) being the spacing necessary for the raceway of the gantries. 2. Arrangement according to claim 1, characterized in that the movable elements (25) are in the form of a flattened S. 3. Arrangement according to claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the supports (27) are carried by the carrier elements (23) around an axis (28) and carry the movable elements (25) by an axis (29) . 4. Arrangement according to claim 3, characterized in that the carrier element (23), the supports (27) and the movable element (25) form a deformable parallelogram with said supports (27) perpendicular to the carrier element ( 23) when the movable element (25) is in the working position. 5. Arrangement according to any one of claims 1 to 4, characterized in that the mobile elements (25) are mounted on the carrier elements (23) by supports (27) of generally triangular shape. 6. Arrangement according to any one of the preceding claims, characterized in that the sections are sheet piles (3) having in section the shape of a bowl with a wide flat bottom (31) on which is arranged an axial rib (35) with which the rollers (12) of the gantries (1) can collaborate by their groove circumferential (19). 7. Arrangement according to claim 6, characterized in that a lifting beam (4) for handling the profiles (3) is attached to the hoist (22) of the beam (2) by a ring (41) and carries said profiles (3 ) by pins (44) which engage under bridges (37) of said sheet pile (3). 8. A method of laying a railway track comprising the installation, before the laying of the track proper, of a raceway by gantry cranes for handling track elements, said raceway being arranged on either side other of the location of the future track and being made up of profiles capable of cooperating with the rollers of the installation gantries, characterized in that one uses for the installation of said raceway elements of raceway stored at inside the space defined by said gantries and which are handled using a beam, carried by said gantries, provided with movable elements making it possible to place the raceway elements at the desired spacing. 9. A method of laying a railroad track using gantries according to claim 8, characterized in that after having laid their raceway, after the removal of the handling beam whose movable elements are put in the rest position and disassembling the sleepers (17), said gantries ensure the installation of track elements which they unload from wagons. 10. A method of laying a railroad track according to claim 8 or 9, characterized in that the sections are sheet piles (3) stored in volumes (18) created by sleepers (17) connecting the branches of said gantries (1), the handling beam (2) is attached to said gantries, the movable elements (25) are put in the working position, and in that each of the hoists (22) carries a lifting beam (4) by which it takes a sheet pile (3) in the volume (18) and brings it by displacement the along the rails (21, 25) at the front of the gantries then, the ends of the elements (25) being spaced by the width (L) necessary for the raceway, each of the gantries places the sheet pile which it carries on the flat - track laying form.

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