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DEPOTS | WORKSHOPS & MAINTENANCE

Railway Gazette International | August 2013 63

Largest lathe order

HYT Engineering has supplied more than 160 wheel lathes to IR, metros and export customers.

LATHE: HYT Engineering has won its largest ever order for wheel lathes, a US$45m contract to supply Indian Rail-ways with 36 CNC surface/above floor lathes for use with locomotive, coach and wagon wheels. Delivery is sched-uled to be completed within two years, with a two-year warranty and five years of annual maintenance.

The machines will be capable of simultaneously machin-ing both wheels of a wheelset within the accuracies specified by RDSO. The CNC system with automatic wheel measuring can decide and set the economical depth of cut without input from the operator, helping to maximise wheel life. l

Blast and paint PAINTING: The Airblast AFC joint venture of UK-based blast booth sup-plier Airblast Ltd and US spray booth and painting equipment company AFC Finishing Systems has recently supplied a US$1·4m wagon painting facility to a customer in Ohio.

This includes blast, paint and drying booths 27 m long and 9 m wide. Four blast machines enable up to four oper-ators to work on a job, with personnel lifts for staff safety and comfort.

The Airflex Recovery Floor with flexible scrapers enables automatic recovery of abrasive materials from blast booths. These can be produced in six standard widths and to any length, and utilise all the floor space so that operators do not have to man-ually recover abrasive. It requires less than 150 mm of ground work. l

Mancheswar modernisedCOACHES: India’s East Coast Rail-way has completed the overhaul of an LHB type coach at its Mancheswar Carriage Repair Workshop for the first time. This follows an Rs250m mod-ernisation of the CRW site, which has increased overhaul capacity from 100 to 150 coaches/month.

The work on the LHB coach in-cluded bogie, air brake and air-con-ditioning modernisation, interior refurbishment and repainting. The development of local capabilities has removed the need for LHB coaches to be sent to workshops elsewhere on the IR network for modernisation, and is expected to increase availability and improve performance monitor-ing. Intensive monitoring of the time from a vehicle coming out of traffic to returning to service has enabled CRW to reduce overhaul times.

Planned future investments include locomotives and wagon wheel main-tenance facilities. l

Purpose-built for potash wagonsCANADA: Potash exporter Canpotex opened a C$60m wagon maintenance depot near Lani-gan in Saskatchewan during June. The company said the purpose-built facility would give it great-er control of maintenance, helping to enhance the performance of its fleet of 5 000 wagons.

The depot features all-weather inspection, light repair and wheel maintenance facilities, as well as an automated washing plant.

‘The movement of our potash from Saskatch-ewan to our export terminals on the West Coast

is the life-line of our logistics, and this facility allows Canpotex to remain the world’s premier potash exporter’, said President & CEO Steve Dechka. ‘With the addition of a railcar main-tenance facility here in Saskatchewan, we are able to stimulate capital investment, construc-tion and long-term job opportunities here at home, while ensuring Canpotex continues to meet the growing demand for potash overseas, and drive our reputation for quality, service and reliability.’ l

Under control

WASHER: Factory control system specialist AIS Automation Dresden has won a contract to supply its Vari-able Train Wash Control software to upgrade a train washing plant in Leipzig.

VarTWC operates both the wash-ing and waste system. It can be ret-rofitted to different types of washing plant, and the latest contract follows the successful replacement of con-trols on various plants in Cottbus, München and Basel.

Parameters to control the cleaning process are drawn from a database, al-lowing new vehicle types to be added by the operators. l

Two depots designed for Desiro City fleetCONSTRUCTION: Siemens has awarded VolkerFitzpatrick a contract to design, build and commission two depots to maintain the 1  140 Desiro City EMU cars which the Cross London Trains consortium is to supply for Thameslink services though London (RG 7.13 p12). The depots at Hornsey in north London and Three Bridges in West Sussex are being built simulta-neously by two in-house specialist project teams.

The Three Bridges depot will be split into east and west side facilities either side of the London – Brighton line. There will be a maintenance building with five 12-car roads, stores, work-shops, offices, 11 stabling and servicing sidings, two washing plants and a wheel lathe. This de-pot is due for completion in 2015.

The Hornsey depot to be completed in 2016 is being constructed within an operational railway environment adjacent to the East Coast Main Line and the existing Hornsey depot. This requires the

co-ordinated redevelopment of the existing depot and also derelict sidings immediately to the north. The work includes widening of two bridges and building a maintenance shed with three 12-car roads, two carriage washing machines and offices. Alterations to the existing depot are being under-taken in close consultation with current operator First Capital Connect to minimise disruption.

‘Our extensive experience in building state of the art rail maintenance depots, coupled with Siemens’ considerable experience in this area, makes for a dynamic and highly skilled integrat-ed project team’, said VolkerFitzpatrick Manag-ing Director Richard Offord. H Eversholt Rail has announced a 22-year agreement to provide Cross London Trains with project management services during the manu-facturing of the Thameslink fleet, followed by long-term asset management including both technical and commercial support. l