Sleeper with adjuster for track switch

The invention relates to a sleeper having an actuator for switch tongues, designed as a hollow box sleeper open at the top, for installation in a railway line, in particular in the vicinity of a switch, the linkages for the movable switch tongues and other functional elements such as drive and locking means, monitoring devices, or the like being housed in the hollow box sleeper.

Such a transverse or hollow box sleeper is known from DE 4,315,200. To allow a cross-sectional width and cross-sectional height that is matched to, for example, a standard concrete or wooden sleeper despite housing of the necessary equipment, the pawls, cam rods, and cam-rod guides are positioned at the upper open side of the sleeper while the lower part of the sleeper holds the tongue-actuating rod and the monitoring rod. For support of the tracks, this hollow box sleeper made of steel has laterally projecting support flanges on its top side. The drive for the locking elements or their linkages is located laterally adjacent the hollow box sleeper, projecting longitudinally from it. Such drives that are flanged or provided on the side or end of a sleeper are also known from DE 42 229 014 and CH 621 168.

Since they conform in shape to a concrete or wooden sleeper, the known sleepers, i.e. hollow box sleepers, designed as locking sleepers ensure uniform tamping capability of both hollow box sleepers and the adjacent concrete or wooden sleepers. However, despite the compact housing of functional elements and parts known from DE 4 315 200, the installation space is very limited if a drive or parts thereof, a hydraulic lock, for example, are to be additionally integrated therein. As a result of this spatial limitation, the drive or the drive parts or linkage parts of the lock project beyond the upper side of the hollow box sleeper. Such projection is particularly critical due to the minimum clearance, i.e. the ground clearance from the track sleepers, prescribed for railway vehicles. Thus, if the projecting parts come up to the minimum clearance, undesired collisions with downwardly hanging vehicle parts are frequently unavoidable.

The object of the invention, therefore, is to provide a sleeper of this type that allows integration of a drive means, or at least parts thereof, without the stated disadvantages.

This object is achieved according to the invention by providing the hollow box sleeper with a floor trough for housing the functional elements or parts thereof. Several advantages may thus be realized at the same time. On the one hand, it is recognized that the floor trough has little or no adverse effect on automatic or manual tamping of the hollow box sleeper. On the other hand, the recessing of the floor trough produces a lower installation space such that preferably the drive or parts thereof may be housed without impairment by any other installed parts situated thereabove in the hollow box sleeper. The floor trough is provided in such a deeply recessed location that in any case, no component projects into the minimum clearance of the railway car. In addition, the floor trough increases the weight of the hollow box sleeper that stabilizes its position.

The floor trough, which for hollow box sleepers manufactured from steel may be provided either by casting and cold/hot working, may advantageously have a rectangular or trapezoidal cross section. As the result of its angled and upwardly flaring end walls, a trapezoidal floor trough facilitates tamping of the hollow box sleeper.

According to proposals of the invention, the floor trough may be provided centrally or off-center on the hollow box sleeper. In either case, the hollow box sleeper thus acquires additional positional stability with respect to its longitudinal and/or transverse displaceability.

It lies within the scope of the invention to make use of the considerable advantages of a floor trough, such that for a hollow box sleeper the drive is provided or installed on the end so that the usual length of a switch sleeper is exceeded. For this purpose, the floor trough is displaced off-center to one side only until it is beneath the drive, and even for such a long hollow box sleeper then provides improved positional stability, i.e. support from beneath and from the sides in the ballast.

Further features and particulars of the invention result from the claims and the following description of shown embodiments of the subject matter of the invention shown in the drawings. Therein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a hollow box sleeper together with running rails and the associated movable switch tongues in reduced scale;

FIG. 2 is a top view of the hollow box sleeper according to FIG. 1 in larger scale;

FIG. 3 shows the hollow box sleeper of FIG. 2 in a section along line III-III;

FIG. 4 is a cross section of the hollow box sleeper according to FIG. 2.;

FIGS. 5 through 8 are views like FIGS. 1 through 4, but with another design of the underside of the hollow box sleeper; and

FIGS. 9 through 12 are views like FIGS. 1 through 4, but with a further design variant of the underside of the hollow box sleeper.

A hollow box sleeper profile 1 shown in FIGS. 1 through 12, referred to below as a hollow box sleeper, is known per se. In the construction of railroad track systems, the hollow box sleeper is is used for producing the railway track from sleepers and rails, in the vicinity of switches, and is positioned in the ballast bed. Running rails 2a and 2b are fixed on the hollow box sleeper, and juxtaposed inside the running rails are movable switch tongues 3a and 3b having slide chair plates 4a and 4b are provided.

The interior of the hollow box sleeper 1 accommodates the functional and movable elements for adjusting the switch tongues 3a and 3b and the locking means therefor that secure the tongue end positions. Of these, for the sake of simplicity only the lock linkages 5a and 5b that branch off from the respective switch tongues 3a and 3b are schematically indicated in the figures. On their ends facing away from the switch tongues 3a and 3b the lock linkages are connected to a drive 6 (electric or hydraulic actuator) (see in each case the longitudinal sections of the hollow box sleeper).

A special feature of all the embodiments of the hollow box sleeper 1 is that on the lower wall 7 thereof a floor trough 8, 8a, or 8b is provided. This enables the drive 6 and/or other functional parts to be recessed down into the depression in the floor trough 8, 8a, or 8b inside the hollow box sleeper 1 without the required functional and movable elements projecting unnecessarily beyond the upper edge or side 9 of the hollow box sleeper 1. The recessed installation space in the floor trough 8, 8a, or 8b thus makes it possible for the elements in question to have little or no projection beyond the upper side 9, and in every case ensures that sufficient distance is maintained from a prescribed minimum clearance 10 (indicated by a dashed-dotted line in the longitudinal sections of the hollow box sleeper 1) of a railway car traveling on the running rails 2a and 2b.

For the hollow box sleepers 1 according to FIGS. 1 through 4 and 5 through 8, the floor trough 8 or 8a is centrally positioned in the floor 7 of the hollow box sleeper 1, relative to the longitudinal extension thereof. Whereas the floor trough 8 has a rectangular shape, the floor trough in FIGS. 5 through 8 has a trapezoidal shape. The laterally flaring, angled end walls 11 of the trapezoidal floor trough 8a form an enlarged installation space.

In the installed operating position, the floor troughs 8, 8a, and 8b result in improved positional stability, and counteract longitudinal and transverse displacement forces. The same applies for the hollow box sleeper 1 according to FIGS. 9 through 12, in which the floor trough 8b is shifted sufficiently off-center and outward so that it houses the drive 6 and linkage means in an end extension of the hollow box sleeper 1, and thus project therefrom.

Sleeper with adjuster for track switch

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