SOMAFEL – North Line – Renovation of Cracked Monoblock Sleepers

During week 46, SOMAFEL completed the contract job to “Replace Cracked Monoblock Sleepers between kms 232+500 and 291+000 of the North Line”.

As this is a section where the maximum operational speed is 220 km/h and with highly intense and diverse rail traffic, it was necessary to replace sleepers to avoid constraints that would limit speed since the sleepers to be replaced were cracked.

In addition to replacing the sleepers, this contract job included heavy mechanical tamping with dynamic track stabilization and ballast unloading, as well as the normalization of internal rail stresses and performance of aluminothermic welds.

In this context, 15 500 monobloc sleepers were replaced and 20 km of rail track were aligned and levelled.

The works were carried out at night, during which the track was closed for approximately 4 hours, with maximum levels of railway safety.