New system at East Midlands Trains Etches Park depot hoists five car coupled vehicles up to 400 tons.

Delivering to stringent time constraints is nothing new to Pfaff-silberblau’s specialist Rail Division. It took the experts for rail and road technology only three months to equip the Etches Park Depot in Derby with a powerful new maintenance system capable of lifting 5-car coupled vehicles weighing up to 400 tons, and spanning approximately 120 metres on the depot’s centre track.

In order to fulfill all the requirements of their franchise agreement, client Maintrain Limited needed this powerful system to be installed by November 2007 when the new franchise period began and they became East Midlands Trains (Stagecoach). Pfaff-silberblau managed to supply the hardware within a very short delivery period and worked intensively hand-in-hand with the depot team to meet the deadline.

Maintrain’s order included twenty 20-ton-capacity HD lifting jacks with floor travel gear for their maintenance facility. As the system has to be able to adapt to different train types, the adjustable load arms along the track were specially modified. The new design developed by Pfaff-silberblau also contributed to more comfortable handling. Each load arm starts at 1,751 mm above floor level and is able to lift a railcar to a height of 3.75 m or 2 m from track level.

The entire jacking system is operated through a synchronization control with a maximum ±3mm deviation across the 20 jacks. The control cabinet is installed at the far end of the track, but workers can plug in a mobile control console with state of the art touch screen panel at three different positions along the rail car to be lifted.

As always with Pfaff-silberblau, safety was top priority for the jacking system. All components were tested for their operability and reliability during heavy usage. To ensure safe and secure operation, the lifting system is equipped with a confirmation pendant on the opposite side of the track for observing the lift of the train.

The order was placed in August 2007; by the end of October the jacks arrived in Derby and were placed in position in record time. Just on schedule, on 9 November 2007, a Meridian Train was successfully lifted -proving the reliability of the lifting jacks. Since then, the system already has accrued a total operating time of 24 hours, with several trains being lifted and serviced per day.