Material or article handling – Wheeled – load-transporting type vehicles and means for... – By additional load-supporting vehicle for moving with load...
Reexamination Certificate
1999-12-16
2001-10-16
Bratlie, Steven A. (Department: 3652)
Material or article handling
Wheeled, load-transporting type vehicles and means for...
By additional load-supporting vehicle for moving with load...
C414S339000, C414S333000, C414S495000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06302635
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The invention relates to a transshipment system with a drop-bed freight car for combined road and rail transport, for example with semitrailers.
PRIOR ART
From a very early time, the amount of freight traffic, increasing from year to year at high rates of growth, gave rise to the idea of bringing together the advantages of road transport and rail transport in a combined road/rail system and, in the system, to leave the local area, or the pre- and post-carriage, to road transport as a delivery service. This system has proven successful as such, but currently undertakes only a small proportion of the volume of traffic, which however requires considerable expansion in view of the forecast development in the volume of freight.
In view of the high investment and operating costs as well as the large space requirement of the transshipment terminals, this entails considerable problems. In addition, there is the great amount of time needed for loading and unloading as well as marshaling the freight cars and the delivery vehicles. The time gained in rail transport, which in any case only becomes noticeable over relatively long distances, is consequently largely lost in view of the low transshipment rates of the terminals. This applies especially to vertical transshipment, which requires expensive crane systems to allow an entire train length to be run along by one or more gantry cranes and to make it possible for the freight containers or transport units to be transported transversely over about 25 m. Since each crane can transport only one unit at a time and the transport between truck and freight car takes several minutes, the transshipment rate at the terminal depends on the number of cranes available.
In order to load or unload a freight train with about 30 freight cars and, correspondingly, 60 freight containers with one crane, several hours are required, during which the rolling stock, in particular the freight cars, are not performing any transportation service. Added to this is the fact that the failure of a crane, even if only temporary, upsets the scheduled timetable in view of the high frequency of rail-bound passenger and freight services; this sets very narrow constraints on the expansion of combined transport, in particular with the greatly increasing trend toward just-in-time deliveries.
To avoid crane transport, German Laid-open Patent Application 33 13 211 proposes the use of a low-level freight car, which is provided with a laterally displaceable loading platform. The loading platform can be horizontally extended, perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the freight car, and thus allows truck-trailer combinations to run on parallel to the track. A major disadvantage of this system is that, when they are extended at the same time, the loading platforms lie one behind the other at intervals of about 5 m and therefore do not allow simultaneous loading. Accordingly, as when loading freight cars by means of an end ramp, the truck-trailer combinations must drive from one side over the individual loading platforms one after the other, until they reach the loading platform assigned to them. Another possibility is for the loading platforms in each case to be extended individually to the side and loaded one after the other. Simultaneous loading and unloading of all the freight cars is not possible in the case of this system.
Added to this is the fact that this system is truck-dependent and is accordingly not suited for the transportation of unpowered semitrailers and containers. Accordingly, when loading the freight cars—unlike in the case of container transport—no transporting capacity becomes available for road transport. Rather, the complete truck-trailer combination continues as before to cover the full distance between the outbound station and the inbound station; this is, however, accomplished in the local area by road and in the long-distance area on the railroad freight car or by rail.
This disadvantage is overcome by a drop-bed freight car known from European Patent 0 023 372, with the aid of a centrally rotatable loading platform, which allows simultaneous loading and unloading from the side or toward the side. However, in the case of a freight train with 30 cars, this requires a total of 60 tractor units each with a driver, 30 for bringing the delivered semitrailers down from the laterally swung-out loading platforms on one side of the train and 30 for loading the loading platforms from the other side. Therefore, the loading and unloading of the freight cars, taking only a few minutes, requires a high expenditure in terms of machinery and personnel. The costs involved are probably the reason why this system has also not been widely adopted.
The invention is thus based on the problem of providing a transshipment system which not only allows an entire train to be loaded and unloaded within just a few minutes without cranes and without the use of expensive tractor units, but with equally low expenditure also allows the loading and unloading of an individual freight car or a number of freight cars.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The solution to this problem is based on the idea of using for the loading/unloading of the transporting units onboard or stationary mountings which move under the transporting units, preferably semitrailers, pick them up and set them down on the freight car.
The invention specifically comprises a transshipment system with a drop-bed freight car comprising a frame mounted on bogies, preferably with three axles, and onboard or stationary underrunning mountings, which can be moved transverse to the longitudinal axis of the frame and are, for example, in the form of a crawler undercarriage. Such mountings can be arranged in the region of the frame upsweeps of the freight car and, under the control of an onboard, preferably central system from the locomotive, can be moved under the transporting units set up parallel to the tracks, for example semitrailers or interchangeable bodies with an interchangeable undercarriage. In order to pick up semitrailers, for example, all that is necessary is for mounting lifting gear to be extended, which raises the semitrailer. The mountings then need only cover the short distance from the ramp onto the freight car, in order to set the semitrailer down there in such a way that its wheels enter a recess in the freight car.
The transverse movement of the mountings, the extending of the lifting gear, the necessary raising of the axles of the semitrailer with regard to the ground clearance necessary for the transporting to the freight car as well as the retracting of the mountings, the setting down of the semitrailers onto the freight cars and the locking 40 of the mountings for rail transport, occurs simultaneously and can be controlled centrally and synchronously with the aid of limit switches.
If bodies with an interchangeable undercarriage are concerned, the undercarriage is left on the loading road and only the body is set down on the drop-bed freight car. Otherwise, transshipment proceeds in exactly the same way as in the case of a semitrailer.
The transporting system according to the invention requires, as additional expenditure, essentially only the onboard or stationary mountings, for example the crawler undercarriages mentioned, and at least one narrow loading road or ramp alongside the track. The space required for the loading road or ramp is extremely small, because the semitrailers or transporting units only need to be set down in a row one behind the other at given intervals and then the tractor units are immediately free to pick up a new semitrailer, for example one which has just been offloaded.
By using, for example, slabs of a large surface area on leveled underlying ground, the loading roads and ramps can be set up with minimal space and cost requirements, making it possible everywhere. This allows the terminals to be arranged with widespread coverage at short intervals of 200 km and, in view of the high transshipment rate, cost-effective rail transport even over relatively short distances, b
Kölker Carl Wilhelm
Thiele Bernd
Altera Law Group LLC
Bratlie Steven A.
Daimler-Chrysler AG
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