Last week, colleagues from voestalpine Track Solutions Saudi Arabia travelled to the Netherlands to uncover all the ins and outs of the 'Railpro concept'. It can be a challenge abroad to properly explain the concept, because in the Netherlands the concept is so well-known it’s considered normal. The fact that a commercial company, and not the infrastructure manager or the network operator, keeps stock and manages railway materials for projects as well as for the breakdown and maintenance market.

Our completely renewed anti-trespass – also called the ‘PRISMA panel’ – has been officially certified and is available in our webshop as from now! Anti-trespass panels are placed at spots where it is still too easy for travellers, trespassers, and those with suicidal tendencies to enter the railroad tracks. Based on the feedback we derived from our clients, we have further improved the mats. And the result is fantastic.

Did you know that our Insulated Rail Joints (IRJs) contain RFID-tags? Measurement trains can read out these ‘transponders’ and recognise the track components accordingly. With this system, we help the railway operator in mapping out our built-in track products more clearly, so that they can be easily identified.

Robot Felix is testing a S&C for the GVB, public transport company of Amsterdam and vicinity, at emplacement Diemen. “Everyone measures differently. But this computer-steered robot conducts the measurements in exactly the same way each time. And this gives a much more reliable impression of the overall condition of the S&C as a whole. As far as I am concerned, that is an enormous advantage”, says Henny Compier, Technical Analyst at GVB.

Together with its Robel team, Railpro is currently in Belgium for a period of one month to support the Belgian railway infrastructure manager in one of the busiest years ever. A new approach, intensive cooperation and some innovative adjustments to the Robel train have made it possible to load and unload rails even at the most difficult locations.

The Dutch railway infrastructure is characterised by a high train traffic density and a maximum (track) utilisation. This intensive use of the system obviously leads to a particular level of damage. Some pieces of rail become so worn that they have to be replaced with new components. When installing these new pieces, differences in height may occur between the new rail head and the current track level, which has decreased a few millimetres due to the time- (and traffic)-induced wear and tear. The qualitatively best and most efficient way to deal with this problem is by milling the new rail at exactly the same height as the existing track level.

Since 1 July 2016, railway operator ProRail has required the use of milled rails in the construction of tracks. In order to meet this obligation, we purchased a milling machine specifically tailored for this purpose. After making this investment we have been able to optimise our production process on a continuous basis. As a result, we can preventatively mill long welded rails of no less than 360 metres long, and build it in the track immediately afterwards. And what’s more, as from now on we are even capable of delivering step rails at custom-made heights!

In 2018 you will be able to rent the well-known Fas wagons from us, be it for short or for longer periods of time. We have added several of these freight wagons to our current wagon fleet. The Fas wagon is a tipper, which can be used for the transport of new as well as old ballast or sand, which in turn is used for construction and renewal of the track.

For a railway operator, availability of the network is priority number one. It is for this same reason that routinely planned maintenance is of utmost importance for the ÖBB, the Austrian national railway company. At the end of last year, we joined forces with voestalpine Weichenwerk Wörth GmbH (WWG) to repair Austrian insulated rail joints for the ÖBB.