Rail Milling
Advanced maintenance technology for North America
Plasser American contracting services will provide the next level of rail maintenance through the innovative Romill Urban 3 E3 milling machine to Transit Systems as well as Freight Railroads in North America. The innovative Romill Urban 3 E3 high-performance milling machine incorporates the next generation of electric rail milling. The Hybrid drive system with high capacity batteries will provide hours of emission-free operations. The integrated diesel engine provides the ability to charge the batteries and acts as a range extender. Featuring the revolutionary new cutter head design for longer tool life and extended operational capabilities along with State-of-the-art measurement technology. This compact layout fits into the tightest subway tunnels and allows easy road transportation.
Romill Urban 3 E3
Romill Urban 3 E3 – how does it work?
Rail Milling is a rotational cutting process that removes material from the rail surface in form of milling chips. The chips are collected by a high efficiency vacuum system and are stored in a chip bunker on the machine to be recycled at a later stage. As this dry cutting process does not result in any sparks, rail milling can be used in fire sensitive areas or even fire ban areas without any special fire prevention measures. In urban areas this is especially applicable in tunnels, at street level and on elevated track – all environments where sparks can cause major fire danger. In addition, rail milling does not create any dust. In closed environments like tunnels or stations this has a major health impact on the operator crew and other maintenance crews working in the vicinity, for not being exposed to dangerously high dust concentrations. Due to its adjustable cutting depth of 0.1 mm of up to several mm per pass, rail milling can fully remove any rail damage and can completely restore the rail profile to its targeted shape. Not only the transversal profile is restored within tightest tolerances but also in longitudinal direction, a perfectly smooth rail surface is created.
Romill Urban 3 E3 cutting head
Romill Urban 3 E3 – rail maintenance going green
The Romill Urban 3 E3 is the world’s first milling machine equipped with a hybrid drive system, allowing for a total of 3 hours of pure electric battery operation. To operate beyond these 3 hours, the machine is equipped with a Tier 4 final diesel engine range extender, that also provides quick charging capability. Of course, the machine can also be recharged through an external power source. Therefore, the machine can work in densely populated neighborhoods and other similarly noise sensitive areas without any special measures. The Romill Urban 3 E3 can accurately remove between 0.1mm and 1.5mm in pass at milling speeds of up to 4000 ft/h.
The Romill Urban 3 E3 is designed to fit into smallest tunnel clearance envelopes. Besides urban areas, Plasser American also has application scenarios readily deployable to promote milling technology in class 1 / freight environments and to use this machine to treat bridges, switches and high damage areas (specialty milling applications) in these networks. The milling machine consists of three cars that can be individually transported on floats to and from the work side. No cranes are required for loading and unloading the milling machine (RoRo capability). After unloading the machine can be reassembled and put into operation within 2-3 hours.
Rail surface after treated by the Romill Urban 3 E3