Company takeover in Poland sealed with railway abnormal load
January 8, 2021 | Markus Lackner
The Felbermayr ITB division, which is responsible for abnormal rail transports, has been operating a site in Wroclaw since 2004. With the takeover of Daher Projects and its associated subsidiary in Poznań, Felbermayr is considerably expanding its sphere of activity in Poland. ITB divisional manager Thomas Grabuschnigg also sees reason for much optimism in the fact that the long-standing head of Daher Projects, Karol Świercz, will also head the railway abnormal load division in Poland for Felbermayr.
Short time window for transfer between transport modes
The starting point for the rail transport of the approximately twelve-metre-long voltage transformer was a factory in Łódź. The destination was a transformer station in Pątnów to the northwest. “The rail transport was within the usual requirements,” says Świercz, who, together with Grabuschnigg and Wolfgang Schellerer, forms the general management in Poland. This meant that the 20-axle schnabel car with loading girders was able to transport the transformer to its destination within a few days. However, a technically demanding process began once there: “Due to the limited space available, we could not move the transformer from the railway to the road in the usual way along the track axis; the length of the railway track was not sufficient for this,” notes Świercz, pointing to an elaborate work process involving two self-propelled units (SPMT). Consequently, the possibility of transversal driving of the self-propelled units was used. The transfer process ultimately took place at a 90° angle. While the rear car half of the schnabel car pushed along the transfer track, the self-propelled unit at the front rolled at a 90° angle to the track in the direction of the second set-down point. Once there, the rear end was moved so that the road set was complete. For this work, a narrow time window of a few hours was available in order to only briefly block operations at the siding. Thanks to good planning on the part of Świercz and “Method statement”, the time requirements could be met. “Nevertheless, it was a challenge,” Świercz comments on the process of this special transfer, which is only necessary every ten years or so and this time also had to take place under great time pressure.
The subsequent road load journey of less than one kilometre to the substation with a schnabel car and SPMT was “difficult by default”. For example, an underpass with a clearance height of 4.6 metres had to be passed with the 4.5 metre high special transport and numerous tight curve radii had to be overcome. The foundations of the transformer in the transformer station were realised by the Felbermayr heavy installation team from Linz.
