RU2247672C2 - Rail vehicle for carrying large-size loads - Google Patents

Abstract

FIELD: railway transport.

SUBSTANCE: according to invention, in rail vehicle designed for carrying at least one unit load of road-vehicle, container or other similar type, bottom part 4 of carrying structure 3 is lowered to lower border or below standard overall clearance down to level of several centimeters from ground surface. Width of said bottom part 4 is equal to size of maximum existing track gauge for road vehicle approved for free and normal driving along motor roads.

EFFECT: enlarged operating capabilities.

6 cl, 5 dwg

Description

The present invention relates to a railway vehicle intended for the transport of unitary goods, in particular road, such as long-distance road vehicles, containers or tankers, the main distinguishing feature of this railway vehicle is the very small clearance or clearance over its entire width.

In order for the railway rolling stock to be able to move freely in tunnels or under bridges, the railway departments establish one or more dimensions that limit the contour or envelope, inside which the rolling stock used with these railroads should be together with the cargo. Compliance with this dimension gives a guarantee that this rolling stock will never meet a fixed obstacle in its path.

European Railways entered into an agreement to establish a single common gauge or the so-called “UIC gauge” (that is, the gauge established by the International Union of Railways), which takes into account the requirements of various national railway networks. At the same time, railway rolling stock that complies with this UIC dimension has the ability to move along virtually all European railways without any risk.

The lower parts of the various national railroad dimensions used are not much different from each other when moving from one national rail network to another. But in its upper part, some national railway networks (for example, in Germany, Austria, etc.) have a size that is significantly higher than the mentioned UIC size, for historical reasons. On these railways, freight cars, for example freight platforms that satisfy the UIC dimensions when empty, can carry goods that go beyond the UIC, but fit into the national dimension of the railway of the country in question in this case, that traffic is carried out only on the national railway network.

Thus, a situation has arisen when there is an international UIC gauge observed during railway cargo exchange between different countries, but there are also national railway gauge requirements, the upper border of which varies significantly in different countries. In this case, the lower boundary of this dimension at present and in most cases remains the corresponding lower boundary of the UIC dimension.

In the context of the widespread development of combined transport links and the advent of the practice of ground transportation of bulky sea containers, some national railway networks, in particular the French railways, have expanded their requirements for the railway gauge in its upper part on some of its lines to enable the transportation of these bulky containers and adapting in this way to the size used in most of the neighboring countries in which binding and x railway lines.

For rail transport of European-sized road freight vehicles (whose height in the loaded state does not exceed 4 meters) on freight platforms, the railway authorities were confronted with the need to review to expand the existing gauge in its upper part. However, such an expansion requires an expansion and increase in the level of arches of tunnels and passages under bridges. Works of this kind are very expensive and take a long time, because, for example, construction work in tunnels is complicated by many circumstances (difficult access, the need to maintain train traffic on at least one of the two tracks, etc.).

For European railways, the expansion of the gauge has always been considered and implemented in its upper part, and never in its lower part for many reasons:

- in the event that there is an excess of the normalized size in its upper part during the transportation of certain goods, an empty freight car always satisfies the UIC size and, therefore, can move freely everywhere. If the design of this freight car extends beyond the bounds of size in its lower part, then this car will be “hostage” only to specially adapted lines, which is very undesirable for ordinary freight traffic;

- freight wagons in operation must be able to pass through sorting centers or points. However, the sorting of these freight wagons is carried out “under the influence of gravity, when the train of uncoupled freight wagons is pulled onto the so-called“ sorting slide ”, from where they themselves descend by gravity and then are sent by turnouts to the destination. Such sorting slide is usually has a relatively small radius of convexity of the track, which requires that the minimum height of the freight platforms of the cars from below is not too small so that the middle part of the car does not enter the bellows contact of friction with a curved rail during such sorting slide. In addition, modern sorting stations have "track brakes", which are equipment mounted on the ground and providing braking of cars using movable clamping jaws acting directly on the side surfaces wagon wheels These clamping brake jaws in their position of raising to the maximum possible height shall not collide with the lower part of the grades to be sorted ie cars;

- The most common obstacles that may affect the lower part of the cars are low passenger platforms. Significant going beyond the dimensions in the lower part of the car requires the completion of all such low passenger platforms that can be found on this railway line and the number of which can be very large, which determines a very large amount of work necessary for their reconstruction. And such cars will always remain "hostages" of the railway lines on which these low platforms are modified accordingly.

The dimension in its lower part forms mainly two sides, inclined at an angle of 45 °. In order to be able to load a truck with dimensions that meet European standards, or a large sea container, or two containers stacked on top of each other, it is necessary that the surface on which the wheels of this truck or the base of the container are located has a width of a range of about 2.5 m to 2.6 m (minimum width equal to the distance dividing the outer side surfaces of the pneumatic tires of a heavy truck). However, due to the presence of dimensions corresponding to the sides, inclined at an angle of 45 °, such a width is at best realized only at a level approximately 15 cm higher than the minimum level acceptable for the lower part of a railway vehicle, which entails the loss of usable height, making it impossible to transport by road a road vehicle or container four meters high.

One of the technical objectives of the invention is to transport by rail a combination of road vehicles four meters high without using special transport for this.

Another technical objective of this invention is to reduce, as far as possible, the contact point of the transported cargo with the bottom of the freight car.

And another technical objective of this invention is to reduce the clearance or clearance of a railway car.

Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will be better understood from the description below, which is not a restrictive example of its implementation, with reference to the figures given in the appendix, including:

- figure 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a railway vehicle in accordance with the invention, loaded with an articulated road vehicle, which is a tractor with a trailer, and in this figure the normalized dimension is indicated by a solid bold line, and the lower part of this dimension specially highlighted with an even thicker line;

- figure 2 is an enlarged schematic view of the part highlighted by a circle in figure 1;

- figure 3 is a diagram showing a General view of the normalized size in accordance with the reference circuit;

- figure 4 is an enlarged view of the trajectory of the lower part of the envelope, shown generally in figure 3;

- figure 5 is a view of the trajectory, consistent with the trajectory shown in figure 4, the size corresponding to a railway vehicle with very low ground clearance or clearance and with a maximum width of the load-bearing structure of the cargo platform in accordance with the invention.

The present invention relates to a railway freight car 1 or, in a more general sense, a railway vehicle comprising a supporting structure 2, for example a supporting frame. The housing of this supporting structure 2 forms in its lower part a loading platform 3, for example, with a flat bottom part 4, which is made with the possibility of rotation around the axis and / or with the possibility of lowering to the ground with one of its ends for loading and unloading of self-propelled equipment on their own in each such car separately.

Of course, any other methods of loading and unloading a given railway vehicle are possible, and the proposed invention has absolutely nothing to do with a specific method of loading and unloading cars.

The lower boundary of the loading platform 3 with a flat bottom 4 fits into the lower part of the standard size.

In accordance with the example of implementation of the invention presented here, the width of this bottom part 4 of the loading platform 3 is equal to the width of the normalized dimension.

A railway vehicle 1 in accordance with the invention is intended to carry unitary cargo in the form of a road vehicle or cargo transported by road, for example an articulated road vehicle formed by a tractor 5 and a trailer 6, or one or more containers, or one or several tankers, or other similar cargoes, independently moving on roads or transported along them.

A standard rail gauge showing a general view of a reference circuit is shown in FIG. 3.

In this general view of the envelope, its upper part 7 is distinguished, generally having a rounded shape and formed by a flat peak 8, continued in a downward direction on each side of the connecting portion 9 extending between this vertex and the sides 10. Each such connecting portion 9 is broken a line formed by three successive segments of straight lines 11, 12 and 13 having a gradually increasing slope in the downward direction up to the connection with the corresponding vertical side 10.

The distance between these two sides defines the maximum width "d _max " of this dimension.

This dimension extends in a downward direction and on each side with a first shift 14 oriented inward and intended to leave free a recess or ledge 15 corresponding to a passenger platform of a first height and thereby reducing said maximum width by a distance corresponding to these two first shifts .

Then this dimension continues in the downward direction and on each side with a small lateral side 16, after which there is a second shift 17, further reducing the width of this dimension up to the width of "d _min ".

Each such second shift 17 is connected to the bottom line 18 by means of a line 19 inclined at an angle of 45 ° in the direction inside this dimension and limiting the shift, representing another recess or corner ledge 20, corresponding to a passenger platform of low height in the lower part of this dimension.

The lower boundary of this dimension, represented by the bottom line 18, is located in the example considered here at a distance E of 13 cm from the soil surface.

This overall dimension, of course, is symmetrical with respect to the axis of the railway track, represented here as the axis of symmetry 21, perpendicular to the plane of the track and intersecting this plane in its middle.

One of the technical objectives of the invention is to reduce the level of the contact surface of the transported cargo with the supporting structure of the car as low as possible of the given dimension or to the level of several centimeters above the ground surface, for example, to a distance "e" from the ground surface, which has a value from about 8 cm to 10 cm

Due to the necessary floor width, which has a value in the range from 2.5 m to 2.6 m, the size of this railway vehicle is beyond the standard size. However, if we confine ourselves to the fact that we miss the upper point of the beveled line 19, inclined at an angle of 45 ° (located at a distance of 400 mm in height and half the width of 1250 mm from the reference contour of the UIC dimension), there will be no collisions with the very widespread low passenger platforms with a height of 385 mm that go exactly through this angle. Passenger platforms of a new generation with a height of 550 mm are placed a little further from the axis of the track and, thus, do not interfere. Only 300 mm high platforms will interfere with the passage of such a railway vehicle. However, such platforms are very old and practically no longer exist on the main highways, since in the process of major updating of the track and ballast, they are destroyed to allow passage of mechanized tracklayers. Then these platforms are reconstructed and their height is brought up to 385 mm or up to 550 mm.

Other types of obstacles that can be found in the area where they go beyond the envelope will be boxes of electrical connections in pre-entry areas, where there are many electric traveling devices. In this case, the work to be done to remove these obstacles will always remain less expensive than the reconstruction of the arches of tunnels. Moreover, for all sections of the main tracks (located outside large railway stations), obstacles of this type do not exist.

To solve one of the technical problems of the invention, the cargo platform 3 of the railway vehicle is made so that its flat bottom 4 is located as low as possible, that is, very close to the soil surface, at a distance "e" of several centimeters, for example in the range of 8 cm to 10 cm, from the surface of the soil, thereby giving this railway vehicle a very low ground clearance or clearance.

More specifically, the contact surface of the cargo with the bottom part 4 of the supporting structure of the railway vehicle is at least one height or below the bottom line 18 of the standard size.

At the same time, the overall width of this railway vehicle exceeds the largest existing gauge for a road vehicle, allowed for free and normal movement on roads, that is, for movement without special support such as an emergency convoy.

In terms of the width of the loading platform 3, on which the load is located, it has a maximum usable size, indicated by "d _lim " and in any case at least equal to and, at most, slightly greater than the gauge of the largest-sized road vehicle road networks, for example an articulated vehicle such as a tractor-trailer, or a tractor-semi-trailer, or another vehicle. Of course, this width will be less than the width of the dimension of the railway vehicle considered here.

The lateral structures of the sides 22 and 23, presented on each side of a given railway vehicle, ensure the safety of movement and lateral protection of this unitary road load of this railway vehicle.

These lateral structures of the sides 22 and 23 are inclined upwardly outward, and each of these sides together with the bottom part 4 of the cargo platform 3 forms an open obtuse dihedral angle, one of the planes of which is the plane of the cargo platform 3, and the other is a plane adjacent to it the corresponding side structure 22 or 23.

In their upper part, these side structures are located inside the standard railway gauge so that they are compatible with all high passenger platforms encountered on the way.

As shown in FIG. 1, the pneumatic tires 24 of the tractor 5 rest on a loading platform 3 at the boundary of the dihedral angle rib and the inclined planes of the side walls, increasing the free space in the upward direction in order to leave room for the lower parts of the body of transported road vehicles.

Reaching the overall width, these side structures 22 or 23 extend vertically upwards to a certain small height, as shown in FIG.

This connection with the vertical lateral sides 10 of the dimension excludes the presence of a second ledge 17, made to overcome passenger platforms of low height. The lower corner ledge 20 of the lower part of the usual dimension, represented by the bold line in figures 1 and 2, is not observed. It is replaced by a protruding angle 25 of approximately 20 mm.

It should be noted that the differences in shape between the lower parts of the two dimensions, which are available in comparable figures 4 and 5, namely, between the standard contour of the usual dimension (see Fig. 4) and the size contour, respectively, in accordance with the invention (see Fig. 5).

If the maximum width "d _max " remains unchanged over most of the height of these dimensions, then the bottom line 26 tend to be brought as close as possible to the soil surface and the width of the envelope at this level increases substantially up to the maximum width "d _lim ". Inclined docking sides 27 connect the bottom line 26 to the vertical sides 10.

The exclusion of the second ledge 17 does not adversely affect the railway vehicle in accordance with the invention, which is intended for shuttle service only on special lines of certain directions that do not present compatibility problems with passenger platforms or other obstacles, and without passing through conventional railway sorting centers but on certain routes between specialized loading and unloading terminals.

Subject to these conditions, the fact that there are only certain lines adapted to a given size in its lower part does not constitute an operational obstacle. The transportation of trucks, sea containers or large tankers is especially well adapted for this type of shuttle operation, where cargo flows are grouped on common sections of transport lines.

This type of operation is particularly well consistent with the modern needs of unloading highways and conventional highways from heavy vehicles by loading these heavy road vehicles onto rail vehicles of special trains transporting these cars by rail over various distances without environmental pollution and with the aim of improve road safety.

Claims (6)

1. A railway vehicle, in particular a freight car intended for the transportation of at least one unitary road motorized or non-motorized cargo, such as a road vehicle, a container, a tanker truck or other similar cargo in the railway directions between two railway terminals, characterized in that the contact surface of the cargo with the bottom part (4) of the supporting structure of the vehicle is at least one height or lower with d constant line (18) of a standard dimension, the width dimension of the rail vehicle exceeds the size of the largest existing track for a road vehicle authorized for normal and free movement by road without special maintenance type emergency convoy. 2. A railway vehicle according to claim 1, characterized in that it comprises a loading platform (3) with a flat bottom (4), the lower border of which fits into the lower part of the standard size. 3. A railway vehicle according to claim 2, characterized in that the side structure (22, 23) is located along each of the longitudinal sides of the cargo platform (3). 4. A railway vehicle according to claim 3, characterized in that this side structure (22, 23) is inclined upwardly in an outward direction. 5. A railway vehicle according to claim 2 or 3, characterized in that the width of the bottom part (4) of the loading platform (3) is equal to the width of the standard dimension. 6. A railway vehicle according to claim 1, characterized in that the bottom line (26) of its size is located below the bottom line (18) of the standard railway size.

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