Mobile Milling

What does milling achieve?

Unlike rail grinding, milling is a chip-removal process. Numerous cutting tools are mounted on a rotating milling wheel, which is guided longitudinally along the rail. The design and configuration of the milling tool vary depending on the requested operation and the required rail profile. During the milling process, which is controlled to within a tenth of a millimeter, high removal rates can be achieved per pass; depending on the machine, these range from 0.3 mm (the minimum removal rate due to the technology) to 2.0 mm on the rail surface and a maximum of 2.5 mm per running edge in one pass. This means that the optimum track gauge can be restored after wear-induced changes to the track gauge by means of gauge correction milling. On the other hand, the milling plates are arranged to match the target profile of the rail head, ensuring a continuous transverse profile.

Vossloh Track Milling

VTM-performance

The high-performance milling train VTM-performance operates on standard-gauge and high-speed lines. Its core equipment consists of main milling wheels with a significantly increased diameter. In addition, the rails are reworked using a fine milling technology (finisher) aligned vertically to the rail.

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VTM-compact

The VTM-compact is a compact powerhouse for particulary demanding sections, known as hot spots, in regional and local transport as well as industrial rail networks. Thanks to its high material removal capacity and flexible logistics concept, the compact milling machine also serves as a cost-effective alternative to the labor-intensive replacement of rail-fitting components.

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Maximum performance for every application

Road-rail milling truck SF02 W-FS

The fleet is rounded off by two road-rail milling trucks SF02 W-FS, which also offer maximum mobility, easy on- and off-track mounting, and very short set-up times. A special feature of the milling truck is its mechanical switch milling capability. Thanks to a milling tool designed specifically for this purpose and software adaption for the machining process, turnouts can be including wing rails, the frog, and switch area can be milled to more than 95 % using milling technology.

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Milling train SF03 W-FFS

This high-performance milling train completes the entire rail profile - depending on the condition of the rail and the depth of the defects - in just one pass. The integrated grinding technology also ensures fine grinding, thereby further contributing to extending the service life of the rails and effectively reducing noise.

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Flexis system

With the Flexis System, only grinding work is carried out to adjust the transitions between the frog point, wing rail, and switch area. In addition, Vossloh´s milling trucks can also efficiently remove defects in the running edge area, such as burr formation and surface breakout.

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Safe application

The rail surface quality is always consistent when milling, whereas conventional grinding can result in varying qualities depending on the working speed, feed rate of the grinding tools, and contact pressure (risk of “blue grinding” or “friction-induced martensite,” or FIM for short). During circumferential milling, thermal damage to the rail steel is reliably prevented thanks to the defined cutting tool and the comparatively low milling speed. Instead, the heat generated during the cutting process is completely absorbed by the removed material and transported to the chip bunker for disposal. The chips, which have a blue sheen as a result, are 100% recyclable.

The benefits of the milling process

precision of the process
the quality of the machining
clean and environmentally friendly working conditions
continuous transverse profile
high material removal in a single operation
consistent rail surface quality

Compared to conventional grinding, milling is:

Effective: In addition to the process-related advantages, purely economic factors must of course also be taken into account when selecting the rail maintenance method. In terms of cost, corrective rail processing methods are relatively close to one another when measured by the volume of material removed. However, the cost-effectiveness of milling increases with the depth of processing required. Therefore, the time advantage of grinding may no longer apply even with material removal of just a few tenths of a millimeter due to the more frequent passes, even though the working speed for milling is quite slow at 0.7 to a maximum of 2 km/h.

Safe: Thanks to cutting tools designed according to the relevant specifications and a relatively low cutting speed, thermal damage to the rail and FIM (friction-induced martensite) are prevented.

Precise: Thanks to improved wheel-rail geometry, wear on the rail head is significantly reduced and rail roughness and noise are significantly reduced (well below EN 13231-3-2012 for roughness < 10µ).

Clean: Operating costs are significantly lower for milling due to the clean working conditions: Chip extraction is carried out using cyclone technology directly on both enclosed milling tools and collected in the machine-integrated chip bunker until discharge. This eliminates the need for subsequent track cleaning, which is sometimes necessary with conventional grinding due to dust and slag residues. Track signaling devices also do not need to be removed or reinstalled.

Environmentally friendly: Stored material is 100% recyclable

Mobile milling