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Railway superstructures: Maintenance

Our experience

Alignment and levelling of tracks, tamping and profiling of the railbed and track stabilisation are vital operations for ensuring safe railway transport.

Especially with the advent of High Speed and High Capacity, line maintenance has become imperative for the railway line operators.

GCF S.p.A. has responded to this requirement for many years with impressive professional responsibility, with significant investments in training of qualified personnel as well as to expand the availability of the machines and technological equipment used in routine and special maintenance tasks.

Acquired experience and the accuracy of works carried out with continuity for lots regularly assigned in Italy by RFI (Italian railways) are the reason why the maintenance segment also took us abroad - where GCF has won important contracts in recent years, in railway and metro sectors alike.

Our competitive edge

  • Flexible organisation of personnel.
  • Technological equipment: computerised measuring systems on an absolute base.
  • Efficiency: extensive fleet of machines, unique of its kind in Europe.
  • Performance: quality and speed of execution.

Railbed tamping

Railbed tamping is performed using powerful machines that work using effective vibro-compression hammers capable of inserting crushed stone underneath sleepers.

GCF S.p.A. has about 30 tamping machines for lines and points (type Plasser 09/32/4S, Matisa B66U, Matisa B50D, Matisa B45D, etc.) that are also capable of performing track alignment and levelling thanks to efficient computerized technological equipment performing measurements on an absolute base and thereby ensure minimal error margins.

Profiling

A fleet of 18 Matisa R21 profiling machines is able to handle any type of final ballast outline with a yield of 15 km/h.

Final stabilisation

Five Plasser DGS62N stabilising machines ensure permanent stabilisation of renewed tracks with performances of up to 3 km/h ensuring maximum immediate and durable stability, thereby extending the life cycle of the initial geometry.

In this way, not only can lines be re-opened immediately to rail traffic but there is also an approximately 30% increase line seal, thereby reducing the need for maintenance.

Some GCF and Group Companies construction sites

  • National network, Italy
  • Railway network, Turkey
  • Levelling, Switzerland
  • Metro and Tram Maintenance
  • National network, Italy

    Maintenance national network, Italy

    The systematic maintenance of the Italian national railway network is one of the "historic" core business areas of GCF – Generale Costruzioni Ferroviarie S.p.A.

    Within the RFI Compartments (Rete Ferroviaria Italiana) territorial divisions, the Company has been operating continuously for decades, carrying out both routine and extraordinary maintenance activities to ensure the efficiency and safety of railway lines, whether conventional or dedicated to High-Speed and High-Capacity services.

    Thanks to track geometry and alignment monitoring systems capable of integrating the automatic and progressive recording of reference parameters, GCF S.p.A. is able to carry out cyclical maintenance operations, ensuring the complete restoration of the original track conditions along the entire line.

    In more recent years, the Research and Development Division has conceived, developed, tested and produced devices and frameworks for predictive railway diagnostics. The Neurail System, designed on the basis of the most advanced IT and remote-control technologies, represents an “operating system” capable of managing several specific applications based on diagnostic modules developed using custom sensors. This powerful innovation, whose successful testing has been certified, has demonstrated the ability to effectively meet current requirements for continuous and remote monitoring of railway assets.

  • Railway network, Turkey

    Maintenance railway network, Turkey

    In the western area of Turkey, GCF S.p.A. has carried out - alongside the construction projects of new High-Speed railway lines (Kosekoy–Gebze, Ankara–Sincan) - the maintenance of over 3,800 km of railway lines.

    The most extensive intervention, covering 2,900 km of conventional lines and 900 km of High-Speed lines, involved Zones 1, 2, 3 and 7 of the Turkish railway network (TCDD), corresponding, among others, to the areas of Ankara, Konya, Izmir, Balikesir and Eskisehir.

    In these areas, GCF S.p.A. has been operating for years in full compliance with the stringent quality and efficiency requirements set by the Infrastructure Manager, deploying highly qualified personnel and employing state-of-the-art high-performance machinery (Matisa B45D and Plasser 09/32/4S tamping machines, Matisa R21L profiling machines and Plasser DGS62N stabilising machines).

  • Levelling, Switzerland

    Levelling, Switzerland

    In February 2015, GCF S.p.A. was awarded an important ten-year contract with the Swiss Railways SBB BLS for the execution of tamping and profiling works along the railway lines of the Swiss Confederation.

    These maintenance activities were carried out by deploying a latest-generation tamping machine equipped with 32 tamping units; this made it possible to guarantee very high production levels for the client in terms of track horizontal and vertical alignment correction.

    It was on the Swiss railway network that the newly manufactured Matisa B66UC, fresh from production at the Matisa facilities in Lausanne, made its debut and entered into operation. This universal, single-head tamping machine, featuring extremely high performance, has rightfully become one of the flagships of GCF’s fleet of machines and has proven on Swiss lines its ability to treat all types of turnouts as well as the complete track.

  • Metro and Tram Maintenance

    Metro and Tram Maintenance

    Especially in Italy, but not exclusively, one segment of GCF S.p.A.’s maintenance activities is dedicated to the metro and trolleybus–tramway sector.

    In this field, in which the Company has played a leading role in the construction of major lines in Italian and international cities, specially trained personnel and dedicated machinery - often custom-designed on the basis of identified needs and the experience gained - are continuously deployed in maintenance operations aimed at ensuring the efficiency and constant safety of urban transport systems.

    GCF operates in major Italian cities at the service of network operators:

    • ATM (Agenzia Trasporti Milanese) - Milan
    • GTT (Gruppo torinese Trasporti) - Turin
    • ATAC (Agenzia per il Trasporto Autoferrotramviario) - Rome
    • Metro - Rome

GCF TAMPER IN OPERATION NEAR TRIESTE

Rincalzatrice GCF in opera nei pressi di Trieste