RTR 4/2010 23 Concrete support slabs for tracks in a Deutsche Bahn depot other to leave enough space. The gaps between them are then filled with in-situ cast concrete. In the project described here, a total of 188 support plates with an overall length of 647.4 m were laid. All the slabs on the eastern side of the shed were connected to a common earth. The support slabs were laid by a company called Eichholz Rail (now renamed Strabag Rail, Fig. 3). The strategy for delivering the slabs was devised to combine just-in-time and optimum use of the available freight capacity, given that the space available for temporary storage on the adjacent free areas was only sufficient for a small number of slabs. The insertion of the rails and the pouring of the filler material to hold them in place were carried out by a company called Heilit & Wörner (Fig. 4). In the interests of quality assurance, edilon)(sedra provided the contracting companies with theoretical and practical training in the specific process of installing ERS. Figure 5 illustrates the support slabs in position in front of the eastern approach to the maintenance shed. Most of the road-vehicle crossings over the tracks have the normal dimensions of level crossings. For some of the tracks, however, it was necessary to envisage very considerably longer lengths suitable for crossing by road vehicles. In some such locations, it was also necessary to integrate trackmounted switches for controlling door movements and derailing stops within the length of track to be crossed by road vehicles (Fig. 2). The door controls are housed on the inner side of the right-hand rail of each track in boxes measuring approximately 15 x 30 cm. The track support slabs have appropriate recesses in them at these locations, which de facto means a widening of the rail channel by roughly 22 cm. These recesses in the rail channels are also used for the ends of encased pipes, which are later used in part for electrical cables and in part for additional drainage. Just like the rail, the terminal box connected to it is also fixed in place definitively by casting Edilon Corkelast®. All the derailing stops are positioned between two support slabs, which are laid at a somewhat greater distance from one an2 Practical implementation The maintenance shed has ten tracks accessing it from both ends. The most northerly of these is set further back than the others at both ends. Nine tracks provide access to the shed at both its eastern and western ends, and road vehicles can run over these immediately in front of the shed doors. There is another route for road vehicles to cross the access tracks at the western end about ten metres away from the shed, whereas there is a similar crossing for road vehicles over the parallel access tracks at the eastern end approximately fifty metres away from the shed. Given the particular general conditions prevailing in the depot, the standardised support slabs have been used in various places in a form adapted to the local situation. One example of this is the drainage gulley running immediately in front of the shed doors, which made it necessary to create a step-free transition to the adjacent support slab. The top surface of the support slab, which is usually executed in the form of a roof profile, is thus bent round relative to the adjacent slabs on the shed side to form a horizontal termination. Fig. 3: Laying the suppor t plates Fig. 2: Derailing stops in the zone where road vehicles cross the rails in front of the shed Fig. 5: Eastern side of the depot shed after renovation work Fig. 4: Casting the Edilon Corkelast to fix the tracks in place, while railway operations continue on the neighbouring tracks
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