Rapid Ballast Excavator (RBE)
What do you want to achieve?
- Increased possession lengths?
- Decreased possession times?
- Increased opportunity of handing back early?
- Making track availability a priority?
- Reduced risk – less plant and less operations = less risk
- Zero accident rate?
The Fastline RBE is a machine which moves into the ballast bed, gathers the ballast up over the front apron, and conveys it up through the machine to another conveyor that can rotate through the machine axis 45 in two directions from centre. This enables the machine to load spoil to either a train on the adjacent line or into the cess.
Typical Advance Rates:
- 300 metres per hour at a dig depth of 200mm
- 150 metres per hour at a dig depth of 450mm
Associated Savings:
- Fewer machines on site reducing risk to personnel
- Reduction of cost in manpower, as the RBE only requires a maximum of two staff
- Cost for transport of only one machine rather than a number of excavators
- Ability to achieve up to 300 metres per hour advance in less time than conventional methods – reducing the risk of hand back penalties
- Ability to start back filling with new ballast whilst the RBE is still working – increasing the time saved and assisting the planning process carry out operations concurrently instead of consecutively
RBE Technical Specifications
- Channels a width of ballast 2.7m to 3.8 metres wide
- Leaves perfectly profiled bed – cut to a tolerance of +/- 25mm
- Designed to cut up to 450mm in single pass
- Flexible spoil conveyor – 180 spread, reach up to 7 metres
- De-mountable front bogie and integral rear bogie allows travel to site by rail from access point