The project solution provided significant beneficial outcomes increasing workforce safety by reducing manual handling of rails, and increased the productivity and capacity of the depot by 25% which is equivalent to nearly 8000 tonnes, or more than 640 additional long rails each year.
Network Rail’s Eastleigh Long Welded Rail Depot (LWRD) supplies 216m lengths of railway track and conductor rails to the network by welding together two no. 108m sections to make one long rail. The 108m lengths of rail, each weighing more than 6 tonnes, are delivered to the depot by train, offloaded and stored using a series of lifting hoists supported from overhead gantries.
To make the long rail, these same hoists are then used to lift and place each rail onto a conveyor system that transports the rail to the welding plant. Once the welding is complete, the long rail is taken by the conveyor system to a temporary marshalling area, ready to be transferred onto specialist rolling stock for deployment to the rail network.
Discover how our intelligent integration approach helped increase depot capacity by 25% while improving workforce safety.
Read the full case study here: https://fourtees.co.uk/capabilities/eastleigh-long-rail-depot/
