JP7705650B2 - Road bed sorting machine - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a highly versatile trackbed preparation machine that can be used as an auxiliary device or attachment for rail-road vehicles and rail-road construction machinery.

A type of track bed commonly used on railways is ballasted track.
A ballasted track is constructed by laying ballast such as crushed stone or gravel, lining up sleepers on top of the ballast, and then laying the rails.
In such ballasted tracks, repeated running of trains on the rails gradually causes distortion in the rails, making it necessary to carry out maintenance work to straighten the rails.
For example, large vehicles known as multiple tampers are used to lift rails, replace sleepers, replenish ballast, and perform ground compaction work.
During this type of track maintenance work, some of the ballast gets scattered at the rail fastening points and on the sleepers, and as a post-processing step, this scattered ballast needs to be removed. Until now, however, this has been done by hand, which was a very laborious task.

Patent document 1 discloses a ballast management device in which a first brush and a second brush are attached so that they spread out downward from a rotating shaft, and the second brush is attached to the first brush so that it spreads out more than the first brush.
However, with this type of structure in which the brushes are arranged to spread out downward from the rotation axis, there is a technical problem in that it is difficult for the tips of the brushes to penetrate into the fastening part of the rail.

JP 2018-3375 A

The present invention aims to provide a versatile trackbed preparation machine that can easily remove ballast from rail fastenings and sleepers and can be used as an auxiliary device or attachment for various road-rail vehicles and road-rail construction machines.

The track bed conditioner of the present invention is a track bed conditioner for ballasted track, and is characterized in that it is equipped with a brush device for removing ballast from the rail fastening portion and/or the sleeper portion, and a holding device for holding the brush device, wherein the brush device has a plurality of brushes whose rotation is controlled, and the holding device has a positioning means for the brushes relative to the rail fastening portion.
Here, it is preferable that the brush positioning means has one or more of an angle adjustment means, a height adjustment means and a left-right adjustment means for the tip of the brush relative to the rail fastening portion.

In the present invention, the brush device has a plurality of brushes which are rotationally controlled by a hydraulic motor or the like.
The holding device also holds the brush device in a positionable manner so that the tip of the brush can reach the fastening portion of the rail or the position of the sleeper.

In a railway, two rails are provided parallel to each other.
It is preferable that a pair of brush devices are disposed on both sides of one rail facing each other toward the fastening portion of the rail with the sleeper.
Therefore, if there are a total of four brush devices for two rails, consisting of two brush devices on the inside between the rails and one brush device placed on the outside of each of the left and right rails, it is possible to remove the fastening parts of the two left and right rails and ballast scattered on the sleepers in one run.
In addition, in ballasted track, there are often shoulders that are slightly higher and at an angle toward the outside of the sleepers.
Therefore, a pair of ballast shoulder brush devices for adjusting the shape of the ballast shoulder may be provided on both sides.
In this case, if a scattering prevention cover is provided located on the outside of the ballast shoulder brush device, ballast can be prevented from scattering to the outside of the ballast shoulder.

These brush devices preferably have an angle adjustment means for adjusting the angle of the protruding direction of the tip of the brush so that ballast removal can be performed appropriately.
It is also preferable to have height adjustment means for adjusting the height of the brush tips in accordance with the height of the rail fastening portion and the height of the sleepers.
Furthermore, it is preferable to have a left-right direction adjustment means for adjusting the distance from the tip of the brush to the pair of left and right rails.

In the present invention, it is preferable that the multiple brushes are arranged around a rotation-controlled rotation axis, and that the direction from the mounting base of the brush to the tip end has a predetermined angle of inclination toward the rear side in the direction of rotation, and further that the brushes are made of an elastic material, are detachable from the rotation axis, and the protruding length of the tip end of the brush is adjustable.
In this way, when the tip of the brush comes into contact with the fastening portion of the rail or a sleeper, it rotates while bending appropriately due to its elastic force, improving the ballast removal ability.

In the present invention, when a hydraulic motor is used as the motor that controls the rotation of multiple brushes, it can be operated by receiving hydraulic pressure via hose piping or the like from a hydraulic device provided on rail-road construction machinery such as a hydraulic excavator or a rail-road vehicle such as a truck.
Therefore, the track bed preparation machine according to the present invention can be used as an auxiliary device or attachment for the above-mentioned rail-road construction machinery or rail-road vehicle, and is highly versatile.

The track bed conditioner according to the present invention has a brush device that rotates to remove ballast and a positioning means for this brush device, so that by running it on the rails, it is possible to efficiently remove ballast.
In addition, by arranging multiple brushes inclined rearward at a predetermined angle around the rotation axis, the ballast removal capability is high.

An example of a track bed conditioner according to the present invention attached to a hydraulic excavator of a road-rail construction machine is shown. The front view of the ballast conditioner is shown. A plan view of the ballast conditioning machine is shown. 4 shows an enlarged view of the positioning means of the brush device and the holding device; 1 shows an example of a brush device located on both sides of a rail. An example of a brush device for leveling the ballast shoulder is shown. An example of a ballast conditioner attached to a hydraulic excavator is shown below. An example of a road-rail truck equipped with a trackbed conditioner as an attachment is shown below. An example of one-side wheel structure when using a ballast conditioner as an attachment is shown.

The following diagram illustrates an example of the structure of a trackbed preparation machine 10 for railway ballast track according to the present invention, but the present invention is not limited thereto.

FIG. 1 shows an example in which a ballast conditioner 10 is attached to a construction machine 1 such as a road-rail hydraulic excavator.
In this example, the ballast conditioner 10 is connected to a connecting portion 1a provided on the construction machine 1 via an attachment member 11.
The vertical movement of the ballast conditioner 10 is controlled by a main cylinder 1b provided on the main body of the construction machine 1.

The track bed conditioner 10 has a holding arm 12 that is linked to a mounting member 11 using a pair of left and right auxiliary links 11c, and the holding arm 12 is controlled to move up and down by an auxiliary cylinder 11a.
The holding arm 12 functions as a holding device for the brush device.
The main body of the holding arm 12 has two brush devices on the inside of the pair of rails 2, 3 and two brush devices on the outside of the pair of rails, each of which is attached via a positioning means as described below.
These brush devices have a common structure, and for convenience are referred to as a first brush device 21, a second brush device 22, a third brush device 23, and a fourth brush device 24 from the left in FIG.

In this embodiment, as shown in a front view in Figure 2 and a plan view in Figure 3, a first ballast shoulder brush device 25 and a second ballast shoulder brush device 26 for adjusting the shape of the ballast shoulder are attached via auxiliary arms 12a and 12b.
These auxiliary arms 12a, 12b are connected to the main body of the holding arm 12 so that they can be folded upward, and the left and right first ballast shoulder brush devices 25 and second ballast shoulder brush devices 26 can be rotated upward by 90° and stored.

In this embodiment, anti-scattering covers 27, 28 are provided detachably on the outside of the left and right ballast shoulder brush devices.
The lengths of the shatter-proof covers 27, 28 that protrude from the holding arm 12 in the left-right direction can be adjusted by sliding the shaft portions 27a, 28a, and the covers are also removable.

The brush device has a mounting plate (21b, 22b, 23b, 24b) connected to the rotating shaft of a hydraulic motor (21a, 22a, 23a, 24a), and this mounting plate further has a plurality of shaft-shaped mounting members (21c, 22c, 23c, 24c), and a plurality of brushes (21d, 22d, 23d, 24d) made of an elastic material such as a rubber pipe that can be inserted and fixed to the mounting members are replaceably attached to the mounting plate.
As shown in FIG. 4, the brushes 21d are attached so as to extend in a direction substantially tangential to the rear side of the mounting plate 21b in relation to the rotation of the mounting plate 21b.
As long as it is attached so as to extend at a predetermined inclination angle on the rear side of the rotational direction of the rotating shaft, it does not necessarily have to be in the tangential direction.
In this embodiment, six brushes are attached in a direction generally perpendicular to the rotation axis.
There is no limit to the number of brushes.
In this way, multiple brushes are arranged at a predetermined inclination angle toward the rear side in the direction of rotation and perpendicular to the rotation axis, so that when the tip of the brush hits the fastening part of the rail, it rotates while bending appropriately, as shown in Figure 5.
Although the sleepers are not shown in FIG. 5, ballast scattered on the sleepers can also be removed.

Next, the positioning means for the brush device will be described.
A left/right direction positioning member 14 is attached to the holding arm 12 and the auxiliary arms 12a, 12b.
As shown in FIG. 4, the left-right positioning member 14 is slidably adjustable in the left-right direction by combining a left-right long hole 14a with a fixing member 14b such as a bolt.
A height direction positioning member 15 is attached to this left/right direction positioning member or auxiliary arm.
For example, referring to FIG. 6, a combination of a long hole 15a provided in the mounting portion in the vertical direction and a fixing member such as a bolt allows for vertical sliding adjustment.
An angle adjustment member 13 is attached to the height direction positioning member.
For example, referring to FIG. 2, it is configured by a combination of a rotation center hole 13c, an arc-shaped long hole 13a provided on the outside thereof, and a fixing member 13b such as a bolt.
In this embodiment, the combination of the long hole and the fixing member has been described as an example, but the present invention is not limited to this.

The multiple brush devices provided on the ballast conditioner 1 are adapted to operate by hydraulic pressure supplied from a hydraulic system provided on the construction machine or the like.
As explained in Figure 3, the main relay valve 31 is connected to a hydraulic device provided in the main body of the construction machine via a hydraulic hose, and hydraulic oil is supplied from this main relay valve 31 to the auxiliary cylinder 11a, and is also connected to the hydraulic motors of each brush device via hydraulic hoses via the auxiliary relay valve 32.
By adopting a configuration in which the hydraulic motor of each brush device is connected by hydraulic hoses via the auxiliary relay valve 32 and the main relay valve 31, it is possible to switch between a series connection or a parallel connection of the hydraulic system by selecting the method of connecting the hydraulic hoses between the hydraulic motor of a specified brush device and the relay valve.

If the track bed preparation machine of the present invention is operated by receiving hydraulic power from a road-rail vehicle, it can be used not only as an auxiliary device for the construction machine 1 shown in Figure 1, but also as an attachment for a construction machine 1 such as a hydraulic excavator as shown in Figure 7, or as an attachment that can be mounted on a road-rail vehicle as shown in Figures 8(a) and (b), making it highly versatile.
When used as an attachment, only one pair of wheels for running on rails may be provided on one side as shown in FIG.
Figure 9(a) shows the attachment attached to a vehicle or the like, and Figure 9(b) shows the attachment detached from the vehicle. With this one-sided wheel structure, if the attachment detaches from the vehicle, the attachment will tilt and will be prevented from running independently on the rails.

1 Construction machine 1a Connection part 1b Main cylinder 2 Rail 3 Rail 10 Track bed conditioner 11 Mounting member 11a Auxiliary cylinder 11c Auxiliary link 12 Holding arm (holding device)
21 First brush device 22 Second brush device 23 Third brush device 24 Fourth brush device 25 Ballast shoulder brush device

Claims (3)

A track bed consolidation machine for a ballasted track,
A brush device for removing ballast from the rail fastening section and/or the sleeper section;
a holding device for holding the brush device,
The brush device has a plurality of brushes whose rotation is controlled,
The holding device has a positioning means for positioning the brush relative to the rail fastening portion ,
The brush positioning means has at least one of an angle adjustment means, a height adjustment means, and a left-right direction adjustment means for the tip of the brush relative to the rail fastening portion ,
The plurality of brushes are arranged around a rotation axis whose rotation is controlled, and the direction from the mounting base of the brush to the tip end has a predetermined inclination angle toward the rear side in the rotation direction ,
A track bed conditioner characterized in that the brush is made of an elastic material, is detachable from the rotating shaft, and the protruding length of the tip of the brush is adjustable . The brush device further includes a ballast shoulder brush device for adjusting the shape of the ballast shoulder,
2. The ballast conditioner according to claim 1 , further comprising a scattering prevention cover positioned outside the ballast shoulder brush device. 3. The track bed consolidation machine according to claim 1 or 2 , which is an auxiliary device or attachment for a rail-road vehicle or a rail-road construction machine.

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