A $25 million order placed today by ONTRACK for equipment which maintains and upgrades railway track infrastructure, is the biggest investment in track plant ever made in New Zealand.
The contract for supplying 12 specialist track machines was signed with Plasser Australia. It more than doubles the value of track plant currently operating on the New Zealand network.
The order includes equipment capable of cleaning ballast, levelling, lining and tamping track and stabilising the track to reduce the time temporary speed restrictions need to be imposed on trains after track work has been carried out.
ONTRACK Chairman Cam Moore says the contract will give ONTRACK new tools and capabilities to maintain and upgrade the network it didn’t previously have.
“It’s no secret that we have a big job ahead of us rejuvenating New Zealand’s rail network,” he says. “An essential step towards achieving this is acquiring the necessary tools.
“Today’s commitment to specialist track plant, together with our replacement earlier in the year of our ballast wagon fleet, is our most important initiative since ONTRACK became responsible for the rail infrastructure in 2004,” he said.
The machines will operate as a group and will give ONTRACK the ability to renovate approximately 200km of the ballast and formation each year.
The star of the show is a modern high capacity ballast cleaner that effectively screens contaminated ballast, rejects the spoil to waste and recycles the recovered ballast.
The reject material will be carted off site in special wagons in which the whole floor is a moving conveyor allowing material to be transferred from one wagon to another. These wagons are a new concept in the NZ rail system but commonly used overseas.
The Ballast Cleaner will be followed through the work site by a modern, dual-sleeper tamper which will compact the ballast under the sleepers at a rate 50 percent faster than any of ONTRACK’s other tampers.
This new Tamper will be fitted with advanced systems to sense the sleeper spacings to ensure tamper tynes are inserted accurately.
Behind, but attached to the Tamper will be a Dynamic Track Stabiliser. This machine effectively simulates the effect of many trains passing over the site.
“This is the first of its type to operate on the New Zealand rail network and will allow the track to be reopened at line speed rather than having to wait for a number of trains to pass over the track to consolidate it - often a week or more of speed restriction,” said Mr Moore.
He says buying all the machines from one supplier (Plasser Australia) will give ONTRACK manning and operational advantages.
“Equipment purchases of this size and type could not happen without a committed track owner who is taking a long term view of the track asset,” said Mr Moore.
The new equipment will begin arriving from early 2009.