Our knowledge and experience within the railway industry allows us to design and develop products for specific applications. Our product portfolio extends to several light rail, intercity, metro and underground vehicle classes.
Light Rail
Track Brake System
An emergency braking system was developed for a low floored, tram application. In addition to standard calliper brakes, track brakes provide additional braking for emergency situations. This new product improvement was originally required to replace the existing track brake system on the vehicle.
The system comprises of an electro-magnetic track brake and a positioning mechanism. Two varieties of track brake have been developed. One incorporates self aligning brake shoes and the other has a single brake shoe that provides an increase braking force and reduced maintenance. Both designs can be easily removed from the bogie without disassembly of the surrounding equipment.
To supplement the track brakes, two positioning systems have been designed. For vehicles which operate on new infrastructure, a passive mechanism can be used that maintains a constant gap between the track brake and rail. To compensate for wheel, track and brake wear, the gap can be adjusted hydraulically without any disassembly of the vehicle. For vehicles that operate on older infrastructure or in city applications, where high curbs and other obstacles may interfere with the braking operation, a high powered system can be used. The powered system lifts the track brake well above the rails and, when emergency braking is required, orientates the track brake in the correct position for optimum braking.
Cooler Group
This system was designed to enhance the cooling system on a tram. The existing cooler group consisted of several sub-systems such as the air blast heat exchanger, water pump, header tank and accessories. These sub-systems are located separately throughout the vehicle causing difficulty in removing all of the air from the water circuit and heat transfer problems with the traction motors.
The enhancement was designed using a modular construction which brought together all the sub-systems into a single assembly. The entire assembly was mounted on AV mounts to reduce the effects of vibrational fatigue. The traction motor feed and return pipes were flow balanced to ensure each motor receives an equal flow of water from the system. All of the electrical connections were routed through a single point, using one military type connection.
Intercity
Gangway Strut Systems
Each carriage end has a gangway and faceplate that butts up to another identical unit. These two adjoining gangways form the sealed walkway between carriages. The strut system provides control over the movements of the adjoining faceplates once the gangways are mechanically locked together.
Hot Water Dispensing System
This product was developed as a catering aid, used on vehicles that run on the east coast main line. A hot water boiler is used to fill mobile hot drinks trolleys for distribution throughout the carriages. The hot water from the boiler is transferred to the mobile trolleys through a high temperature hose and gun, via a safety valve. The gun provides the flow control for the hot water and also the electrical contacts to energise the dispensing pump. This system provides a safe means of transferring the hot water from the main water boiler to the smaller mobile trolleys.
Metro
Proportional Engine Cooling
A system was developed to replace a direct drive, engine cooling system on a metro vehicle fleet. The design used a stabilised temperature transducer that fed back information to a proportional controller. The controller drove a variable speed fan that maintained a specific engine water temperature.
Drivers Cab Temperature Control System
A system was generated to replace the air temperature control system in the driver's cab on a metro fleet. The design used a thermostatic controller to drive a the existing cab heater mechanism.
Tachometer Coupling
An intermittent failure was occurring with a underground vehicle's tachometer and an improved tachometer coupling design was required to rectify the problem. Due to a relatively large deflection that was occurring across a vehicle, the existing tachometer coupling was occasionally disengaging the drive between the tachometer and wheel hub.
A new tachometer coupling was designed that was capable of transferring the torque from the wheel hub to the tachometer, whilst being able to account for the axial deflection of the bogie under normal operation. A hexagonal drive shaft, connected to the wheel hub, was designed that was allowed to slide through the tachometer assembly and take up the axial movements of the vehicle.
Carriage Kits
A simple yet effective self- contained pressurizes hydraulic system which helps maintains the Correct shape to allow two mating sealing collars which forms the corridor between two train carriages and allows the constant movement.
Track Brake
In use through out Europe are two systems (hydraulic and pneumatic) both used in the
Assisting to maintain the clearance between rail tack and the emergency electro mechanical brake system
Both designed to reduce down time of re-setting the systems once activated
Cooler van Drivers
Temperature controlled Hydraulic fan motor’s are used to cool the internal temperature of the train main engine compartment, as the temperature increases the fan speed increases.