GERMANY: Track machine manufacturer Plasser & Theurer and contractor Eiffage Rail demonstrated progress in automated tamping at the IAF track technology trade show in Münster on May 20-22.
‘This is a fully autonomous machine; everything you see here is live and real’, said Plasser & Theurer’s Head of Innovation Dr Florian Auer as he welcomed industry guests to the demonstration siding adjacent to DB InfraGo’s Münster – Gelsenkirchen line.
There, the Eiffage Rail-branded 09 4x4 continuous-action tamping machine was set up to tamp autonomously through a turnout, as attendees were instructed to wait behind bollards as the machine began its work.
Operating in diesel mode because the siding was not wired, the E3 hybrid tamping machine carried staff from the manufacturer and the contractor in the front and rear cabs, but these personnel were only on the vehicle to observe its progress. There was no operator in the tamping unit cab.
Auer explained that the demonstration would highlight three key features of Plasser’s research into automation of the tamping process, which he said had been undertaken over the past 10 years.
The three areas were the automated positioning of the work units; assessment of both inner and outer absolute track geometry; and the development of what Plasser terms its Smart Tamping control system. Among other tasks, this is able to set the opening width of the tamping tines automatically as the machine progresses through the turnout.
AI was being used to process positioning data, Auer said. ‘Every possible turnout position in Germany has now been logged’, he added. The technology is also able to classify the ballast found at the worksite autonomously into one of four categories, which can inform decisions about how much of the material needs to be replaced.
Auer explained that, as well as helping maintenance contractors mitigate acute staff shortages in much of Europe, autonomous operation generates significant amounts of data that is made available to infrastructure managers to inform their future maintenance strategies. ‘They get data on ballast condition at every single sleeper’, he said, and even more precise data on relative and target track geometry could also be provided in near real-time if required. This would be ‘especially useful’ for maintenance of high speed railways, he predicted. ‘This is the first time this level of information has been made available’, he told the assembled guests once the machine had successfully tamped through the turnout.
Go deeper: read Railway Gazette and Plasser & Theurer’s White Paper on automation in track maintenance.
