A class by itself: head-hardened grooved rails with 2 winning options

voestalpine is the only company in the world manufacturing head-hardened grooved rails - due to the asymmetrical rail geometry, this is no easy task, not just in the rolling process but particularly for the heat treatment.

Owing to our advanced technology, we've been able to master these requirements without having to make any compromises. We even offer two versions of heat-treated grooved rails:

Option 1: grooved rails of the steel grade HSH^®-M can - in the same manner as grooved rails of the 700 and/or R200 grade - be re-profiled without preheating in an installed state - an option desired by many urban traffic operators.

Option 2: For manufacturing  HSH^® grooved rails, the same chemical composition like that of vignole rails is utilized. That is the reason why the wear resistance is about eight to ten times higher than that of a rail of steel grade 700 or R200. This deployment strategy is frequently called "put in and forget", owing to its long life span.

In general, for curves with a radius of less than 300m, also for grooved rails, the deployment of head-hardened steel grades is recommended.