Concrete mainline sleepers produced according to the Abetong Long Line System by our Austrian licensee MABA Fertigteilindustrie could now also be found in Turkey and Hungary. Since 1990 MABA has delivered mainline and turnout sleepers to the Austrian Federal Railroads (ÖBB), the Vienna City Transport and private railway companies. Sleepers of the utmost quality!

The sleepers are manufactured according to the Abetong Long Line System, which makes a rational production possible and gives a sleeper with high quality and a minimum of tolerances. The endurance of an Abetong sleeper is estimated at approx. 50 years.

SLEEPER PLANT AT PAMUKOVA IN TURKEY

In December 2003, MABA’s sleeper plant at Pamukova in Turkey was inaugurated. Before such a sleeper plant is ready to start, the time for planning often extends over a period of two or three years. The background of a project is the need of sleepers for building or rebuilding of a railway network. In Turkey a new railway line of 530km between Ankara and the European border at Istanbul requires approx. 1.2 million mainline sleepers. MABA established a company in Turkey together with domestic partners, who were impressed by the quality of MABA’s products and the production technology of Abetong Teknik.

The investment cost includes, among other things, production equipment and accessories. 11 trucks with machinery, casting beds, stressing heads and hydraulic equipment were delivered from Austria and four trucks containing casting, cleaning, cutting and mould-handling machines were delivered from Sweden. Equipment was produced according to the latest developments in this sector. MABA’s project team and engineers from Abetong Teknik installed the machinery on-site in Turkey. When installing equipment, technical solutions have to be made with regard to local conditions at different places. At the plant in Turkey, for instance, the change of temperature can be quite considerable. Due to this reason, the casting bed is stored on a type of sleigh construction, which permits a heat expansion correspondingly.

During the installation phase local staff from the new plant will be educated in how to produce sleepers according to the Abetong Long Line System. After the introduction the responsible project supervisors will be familiar with the production methods and how to perform the quality controls.

MABA HUNGARIA READY FOR START

In September this year, MABA’s factory in Hungary will come into operation. To start with there will be three casting beds each with a length of 100m. In each bed 152 sleepers a day could be manufactured. The plant is prepared for more production lines than actually required to be able to increase the production, if necessary.

It is very important that the quality of the sleepers fulfils the rigid stipulations of the Railway Authority. This is achieved by regular quality controls and quality audits.