Our amazing colleagues in Rail Solutions have recently delivered the most complex new concrete rail crossing they have ever had to design and make for the Kings Cross project in London.
The requirements of the crossing tested all their skills and ingenuity to the limits, but in true CEMEX UK spirit the Rail Team pulled together to deliver the solution that the customer needed.
Next time you are travelling into Kings Cross spare our colleagues at Somercotes a thought!
Somercotes Site Manager, Terence Clair, commented: “When the job first came in it was good to see that the Team within Rail pulled together to make this happen. Several meetings were held between different areas of the production unit, this included Team Leaders of design, production, drilling, glue operations, QC and the loading gang, and this was to ensure that each part of the job was carefully processed.
The Team here at Somercotes never stopped amazing me with their positive attitude to ensure that the job was completed in such a short time frame. We did see delays in supply of new components, and the design of the new shear plate almost put the project at risk. Even when our customer had not completed the final set of drawings three weeks out from manufacture putting us behind, the Team pulled together to get the job done safely ensuring customer confidence.”
For those of you with a technical bent get ready for the technical bit. Here goes….
The Kings Cross project is a complex crossing, and from the beginning challenges were set with a new design of the shear plate joint as well as complex offsets of the shoulder positions; a new strand pattern to allow for the new shoulder positions; the complete job was to have the use of glued and cast in under sleeper pad; a plated casting solution was needed to accommodate the new strand pattern; hosta-form inserts were required in a large number of the bearers; 3rd and 4th rail with slipper board positions were also required.
Terence takes up the story once more: “We had the complexity of many different new processes and these required very careful planning and application.
The shear plate required a complete new strand pattern to work so we had new end plates manufactured to suit this new pattern. The strand pattern also wouldn’t allow for the usual drill and fix process so we were able, with the new mould, to cast on soffit plates. The soffit plate cast also required the casting of the new shear plate which is again something never done before, and after careful design and planning this was achieved with almost zero rejects.
The application of the under sleeper pads was also something that has never been done on crossing bearers. The application of these does offer an array of challenges due to the different types of fixings we use within our product and the uncertainty of where fixings will be. We, of course, had some challenges that did give us concern and like most new concepts we had a learning curve, but we learned and improved. Great work! Well done Rail for offering solutions again and rising to the challenge.”
This is another great story to show the breadth and depth of our fantastic workforce and what we can achieve when we pool our expertise.