New machines for GCF's construction sites

Strong investments in efficiency and productivity.

From Plasser's Austrian shipyard, it reached GCF-Transalp's yard in Le Mans last week. The modern 109-3X Dynamic tamping machine is ready to debut on the French railways, further enhancing the operational performance of the Rapide Suite.

The new machine, an evolution of the Plasser 09-3X tamping machine, is a continuous-action dynamic tamping machine capable of providing integrated ballast bed profiling and, simultaneously, dynamic track stabilization. A machine designed for complete maintenance, combining the advantages of one of the world's fastest tamping machines, the 09-3X Tamping Express, with the prerogatives of the proven Dynamic Track Stabilizer. The result is impressive: the 109-3X is able to achieve perfect tamping and track stabilization at a rate of 1,500 mt/hour while, when used in stabilization-only mode, its performance increases to 2,400 mt/hour.

Moreover, the high operating speed added to the elimination of the initial settling period makes it possible to achieve not only high maintenance quality in a short time but, also, the suitability of the track for trains running immediately after the tamping phase. What makes the new Plasser 109-3X Dynamic particularly suitable for supplementing the "speed" work of GCF-Transalp's powerful Suite Rapide trainsets.

"A team of our operators," Sabino Carbone reports from GCF's French management, "has undergone suitable training courses at Plasser's Linz headquarters. Now, after a few more test runs on the track, the new tamping machine will enter full operation on the French yards."

Heavy investment in machines with high operational efficiency

The up-and-coming Plasser 109-3X is the latest of a large series of rail vehicles and equipment that in recent years have renewed and expanded the already substantial fleet of more than 700 machines of Generale Costruzioni Ferroviarie, Italy's leading specialist company that, thanks precisely to the substantial investments made in high-performance machines, is also able to compete in the international markets of track and electrification. In the last 3 years, in particular, 80 million investment has enabled the company to upgrade the equipment in the Electrification segment with various models of SVI motor stairlifts, ladder trucks, road-rail loaders, concrete train wagons, and as many as 5 locomotives.

No less important are the purchases for the machine fleet engaged on the rail Armament front, which has seen the delivery in recent months of 2 Plasser Dynamic tamping machines - an 09-3X and a line-exchange 09-4S, 2 Sorema profiling machines, an IPE G1000 locomotive, as well as several hopper cars and 2 Vaiacar loaders.

Also soon to be delivered are additional vehicles intended to enhance GCF's performance in both the maintenance and refurbishment and, also, railroad construction sectors in Italy and abroad. In addition to several hopper carriages and work carriages, the fleet will soon be reinvigorated by the arrival of a Vaiacar SparkRail road-rail welder, two Sorema profiling machines, a Plasser PBR202 ZW, a Plasser 08-275 ZWL tamping machine, an IPE G2000 locomotive, and, made by Sorema, two Construction Trains that will optimize the functional and design directions of GCF engineers and the experience gained in the field over more than 70 years of commitment to rail construction.

Plasser presents the innovative Unimat 09-8x4/4S Dynamic

GCF'S machine Fleet