SMD 80 lays 1,500 metres of track per day.
On 1 July 2017, a large-scale project that demanded a lot from man and machine was completed in France. The "Ligne à Grande Vitesse Bretagne – Pays de la Loire" is a 214 km long line, travelled on by the French TGV at travelling speeds from 320 km/h to 350 km/h since 2 July 2017.
0 m
0 mm
0 km
From Paris to Rennes in less than 1.5 hours
The metropolis, the bustle around the Eiffel Tower and the Champs-Élysées here; There a village with half-timbered houses in the picturesque Bretagne. Paris and Rennes are worlds apart. On the map, it's just a few hundred kilometres: over 340 and just under four hours by car. You can cover the distance a lot faster by train. Until recently, it took two hours and four minutes. Now, it takes only one hour and 26 minutes
thanks to the project called “Ligne à Grande Vitesse Bretagne – Pays de la Loire”, LGV BPL in short. The high-speed line connects Rennes with Connerré, east of Le Mans, completing the TGV line to Paris. The construction costs for the 214 km long line amounted to EUR 3.4 billion. Since 2 July 2017, French high-speed trains run on the line. Building it was hard work, however.
The idea to build the line first came up 25 years ago. Following a lengthy procedure to select the route and the decision for a GPS-based network, the Eiffage corporation won the contract in 2011. A testing phase followed in September 2014. Surveying, ballasting, maintenance, and tamping were coordinated to ensure a smooth workflow and steady progress of the works. Right in the middle of it: Austrian high-precision machines.
Austrian precision in France
Plasser & Theurer’s SMD 80 laid rails and sleepers. Surveying project manager Patrick Walke from the Herzbruch engineering office was impressed by the continuously operating 600 metre long work train: "While the front part of the train, the crawler running gear, is travelling on the base ballast, the downstream installation unit, sleeper wagons, and material wagons for small parts and long-welded rails, are already moving on the newly laid track." This way the machine can lay 1,500 metres of track per day – and even 2,300 metres at peak times.
The machine places the concrete sleepers to a tolerance of 10 mm, which is an impressive level of precision for a heavyweight train, travelling with six rail wagons and up to 20 sleeper wagons.
For the project, seven levelling, lining, and tamping machines were used, some of them with an integrated stabilizing unit. The fleet included the Duomatic 09-32 CSM, 109-4X Dynamic Tamping Express, and the 109-3X Dynamic Tamping Express. The machines carried out at least five tamping cycles and three stabilizing cycles each. Like the SMD 80 track laying train, the machines were produced in Linz and ensure sustainability and safety.
Great logistical challenge
The distance and the varying conditions along the line were the biggest challenges. "It was truly a logistical challenge," Patrick Walke explains. A separate railway bridge and two construction camps were set up in advance to ensure material supply.
The construction camps were up to 60 ha in size, the equivalent of 130 football fields. The camps were used for parking machines and loading sleepers, rails, and ballast. In addition, there were around 36 ballast depots along the line. Despite careful preparation, a considerable number of staff was required.
"In mid-September 2015, when the SMD 80 was somewhere between line kilometre 175 and 180, close to Rennes, the trains for rail and sleeper supply were operated in three work cycles," Patrick Walke explains. Immediately after the SMD 80 had laid the track, the trains supplying the material could already travel on it.
Since late 2016, test runs have been carried out on the LGV BPL. In January 2017, a train reached the maximum speed of 352 km/h. It transports passengers from Paris to Rennes in 1 hour and 26 minutes (time saving of 37 minutes). Two cities that are worlds apart.
Extract from "LGV BPL: La voie c‘est moi" Part 1 and Part 2, published in the magazine "Der Eisenbahningenieur", focusing on track surveying, January and February 2017 issues.
Gallery
