Rail Bogies Help Keep Our Trains on the Track
Rail bogies are one of the vital cogs that help to keep our trains on the tracks all over the country.
Because rail bogies are heavy-duty, the best way to move them around is using rail pushers from Tractive Power.
Our TP500HD Rail Mover can move up to 50,000kg (50 tonnes) and is pedestrian operated and battery-powered, making them extremely popular with train manufacturers across the UK.
In our latest blog, we are going to look at how rail bogies are constructed.
Manufacturing Rail Bogies
Rail bogies start life as a collection of shaped steel plates which arrive at the manufacturer’s cut and bent to shape, with holes drilled as required, with big chamfered weld-preparations already on the edges.
When butted up against the next components, these chamfers form a deep v-channel that will be filled up in the welding ensuring that the weld is the full depth of the plates.
Components part are then assembled onto large jigs with various plates and other parts are clamped into the jigs until the whole sub-assembly is complete. An experienced welder will tack them together so that the structure becomes rigid.
To allow access to all the joints, the whole jig moves in three dimensions that rotate and swivel so the welder can make sure everything is correctly attached.
Once the assembly is completed and stable, it comes out of the jig and goes off to the main welding robots. It is then attached to another jig, which moves in three dimensions, but this is mounted directly under a big robot welding arm. Behind protective screens, the bogie frame and the welding head move and swivel while a multi-pass weld is built up in all those v-shaped channels.
To maintain capacity, there are four of these units which weld all the volume bogie frames and large sub-assemblies with smaller components welded by hand.
Once welding is complete, the frame is placed on an automated line that checks over all the critical dimensions have been achieved. Welds are checked for integrity, which is then cleaned up, shot blasted and sent for painting. Dangling from chains on a moving track, the frames are sprayed with primer and then finished in a colour that matches customer’s specifications.
Need Rail Pushers? Get in Touch
If you need rail pushers to help with moving heavy-duty rail bogies, please get in touch with Tractive Power today.
We also offer a wide selection of battery-powered tugs, that can push and pull small to heavy loads in warehouse and factory environments.
