Atomic Systems

Can anyone tell me why ballast wagons are so low sided? It seems they are deliberately designed to carry as small a load as possible. This deep question has been keeping me awake at nights. Help, please!

Ballast is heavy is my guess!

Agreed - I think it's to prevent accidental overloading.

Also think about how they have to be unloaded - I assume you're not referring to the high sided tipping type! I don't know for sure, but I'd guess the only way to get the ballast out of them is with an RRV next to the wagon, and these only have a certain reach. Make the wagon too deep and you won't be able to get the stuff out, so there's no point lugging it around.

Also, a 60 foot wagon may be designed to hold enough ballast for 60 feet of track, which makes actually applying the stuff on site that much easier.

What kind of ballast wagons do you actually have in mind?

most of em are low sided so they can be loaded/unloaded easier.
What they make up for insize, they make up for in numbers.

Also, with a low sided wagon, there is virtualy no change of hitting the OHLE when loading/unloading wagons.

Autoballasters have to be loaded up away from OHLE, mainly at VQs or in a civil engineers yard, and obviously unload at the bottom of the wagon.

Hope this is of use

Cheers,
Rob.

RRV OHLE VQ

WOT?

OHLE - Overhead Line Electrification. "Wires" to us numpties.
RRV - I'm guessing a hiab or some sort of excavator
VQ - Quarry?

I think RRV is the specific excavator Road-Rail Vehicle, i.e. with rail guage wheels which drop out to enable running on the rail lines.

RRV is a Road-Rail Vehicle. Any kind of road vehicle fitted with a set of retractable rail wheels, although I think we're talking about the JCB . sort.

VQ is a Virtual Quarry. Basically a stockpile of ballast at strategic locations around the country. It saves having to get the ballast from the original quarry where it was dug up 150 miles away if you can get it from the stockpile (Virtual Quarry) 15 miles away.

Autoballaster is a high-tech ballast wagon which, instead of dumping all the ballast in one go at one place, can let out just the right amount of ballast over the stretch of track to get a nice even layer. They're so good the French are jealous...

Aren't some ballast wagons bottom doored so they can deposit direct onto rail and the brake van with the plough smooths it out. Or am i talking nonsense?

Yes, that's quite a common thing. Some of the Ballast plough brake vans (Eg the "Shark") are amongst the oldest vehicles still seen on the railways.

http://web.ukonline.co.uk/wagons/1001-1100/db993717.jpg

mattvince wrote: They're so good the French are jealous...

Not good if you get some numpty that forgets to turn them off and lay ballast over a level crossing!

viperskil wrote:Aren't some ballast wagons bottom doored so they can deposit direct onto rail and the brake van with the plough smooths it out. Or am i talking nonsense?

no.

Seacows or Autoballasters are side unloading only, hence the reason why ballast is sometimes piled up at the rail edges

Ballast that goes underneath the rails/sleepers is done by sidetippers, or open top examples (eg- MHA/MTA, or PNA, ZCA, etc)

Normal procedure is to load the track panels on salmon wagons or slew welded rails to the side and load the sleepers into opens.
Then a train of empty low sided opens comes in and they load them with the old ballast.

Then fresh ballast is unloaded from low sided or mermaid wagons and leveled to sleeper hight.

New sleepers or panels are then layed or the old panels replaced and the track made fit for use.

Then hoppers or the auto ballaster are run over the new track to ballast up to sleeper top or above.

Finally a tamper is used to consolidate the track and the line is opened to traffic.


The method has not changed much over time. Only the machines and wagons.