Neumarkt, Germany, 21 July 2006 – RAIL.ONE GmbH, an internationally successful manufacturer of concrete sleepers, as well as a comprehen-sively oriented system and engineering provider for railway track systems, has, over the past months, succeeded in expanding its market presence in Europe by winning new contracts in Spain and The Netherlands.
New Mobile Production Plant near Madrid for Bi-Block Sleepers
Since as early as 1994, RAIL.ONE – with its partner company, the Spanish construction company COMSA – has operated a plant for production of prestressed-concrete sleepers in Constanti, near Bar-celona. RAIL.ONE, with headquarters in Neumarkt, Germany, won a contract a few months ago for delivery of approximately 100,000 bi-block sleepers from its patented RHEDA 2000® ballastless track system. The components will be installed by November of 2006 for construction of 28km of double-track line in the Guadarrama Tunnel, on the mainline connection between Madrid and Valladolid. A mobile production plant, which focuses exclusively on the production of these bi-block sleepers, has been built by RAIL.ONE in Segovia, near Madrid.
RAIL.ONE has already successfully completed delivery of more than 7,000 polyvalent bi-block and transition sleepers, including fastening units and spindles, for a 2km double-track tunnel on the line between La Coruña and Santiago, as part of the Eje Atlantico project. RAIL.ONE has, in the meantime, secured a further contract for initial sleeper deliveries for an additional 7.8km section of this line. Eje Atlantico has designated a complex of ballastless track projects, with an estimated total length of between 15km to 20km, on the Iberian peninsula. The projects are planned for implementation during 2006 and 2007.
RAIL.ONE has its eye on further projects for mainline railway infrastructure in Spain – which the Spanish government plans to upgrade by investments of over €120 billion during the next 15 years. RAIL.ONE plans are not limited to mainline projects; the company intends to enter new markets on the international scene for urban mass rapid transit as well.
RHEDA CITY for The Hague – Urban Rapid Transit Project with Ballastless Tracks
In the coming summer months of August and September, work will begin on construction of the Aaltje Noorderwierstraat, a tram line in The Hague, with ballastless-track technology. RHEDA CITY and RHEDA CITY GREEN will be installed over no less than 2.6km of tram line, in the City of Peace and Justice, on the basis of the monolithic ballastless-track technology: tailor-made for the needs and requirements of mass rapid transit.
With the RHEDA CITY system, non-prestressed-reinforcement bi-block concrete sleepers are concreted into a monolithic in-situ concrete slab, onto which the grooved tramway rails are mounted. The top layer can be executed with asphalt, concrete, or paving blocks. For RHEDA CITY GREEN, the appealing green track cover is provided by turf or sedum. In this configuration, the vegetated track zones attenuate the noise level, and can store up to 80% of incident precipitation.
For this track project in The Hague, RAIL.ONE will be responsible for system supervision, quality assurance and surveying services, as well as for delivery of approximately 2,800 bi-block sleepers. This order, in addition to underground railway lines executed in Madrid and Singapore, represents a further international mass rapid transit project in which ballastless-track technology from RAIL.ONE will be applied. For these projects, RAIL.ONE can effectively draw on the highly diversified and successful experience gained with RHEDA CITY and RHEDA CITY GREEN in projects completed in Berlin, Dresden, Hanover, Cologne, and Karlsruhe. More than 60km of these system variations are already in operation for municipal mass rapid transit networks.