Projectreport Trier - Balfour Beatty Rail

To protect the maintenance personnel from falls when
working on the electric equipment - most of which is
mounted on the roofs of the BR 425 and 426 traction
vehicles – Balfour Beatty Rail has put up a steel cable,
rope, tightened by springs, on both sides of the overhead
conductor rail as an anti-fall guard. Each maintenance
worker has to secure himself with this steel
cable to his personal safety equipment. Furthermore,
both steel cables have been securely grounded and
simultaneously function as additional rail grounding
of all overhead line supports.
The transition of the overhead conductor rail system to
the chain assembly of the regulating overhead line of
the Re 100 type takes place outside of the workshop
via parallel guidance of the overhead conductor rail
and the overhead line chain assembly. This solution,
which is characteristic of the overhead conductor rail
of the Balfour Beatty Rail type, not only allows an
elastic transition from the harder conductor rail to the
flexible chain assembly and vice versa, but also
shock-free guidance of the current collectors of the
traction vehicle.
Balfour Beatty Rail simultaneously utilizes the parallel
guidance of the conductor rail and the chain assembly
for the electrical separation of the workshop system
from the outside system. Controllable El 6 switches
protect the separation point from unintentional crossing
and thus from bridging. If the overhead conductor rail
is deactivated, traction vehicles may only cross the
separation point with lowered current collectors.
For the outside system, Balfour Beatty Rail has re-laid
a total of 289 m of chain assembly. To this end, new
foundations were brought in and flat frame masts were
erected. In addition, foundations with high static loads
as well as special-design angle supports were required
in front of the workshop gates. In addition to the secure
guying of contact wires and carrier cables, they also
absorb the forces of the anti-fall ropes.
Following the approval of the new Balfour Beatty Rail
overhead conductor rail by the local branch of the EBA
and a successful acceptance test, the pilot project was
commissioned in the DB Regio workshop at Trier on
September 1s, 2005.