Corus Cogifer supplies unique lift-over crossing for Nottingham tram system
10 Jul 2008
Corus Cogifer has supplied, through its Luxembourg-based sister company, Kihn, a unique lift-over crossing for the Nottingham tram system. The crossing has been designed to reduce noise and vibration levels by removing rail discontinuities.
Trams passing over the turnouts on the Royal Centre crossover (between the northbound and southbound tracks outside the Royal Theatre at Nottingham) were causing unacceptable levels of noise and vibration inside the theatre. The crossover is in the trailing direction to normal tram running. To reduce the peak level noise produced by the trams passing over the crossing, all rail discontinuities (associated with traditional fishplated cast manganese crossings and wheel transfer across the throat area of the crossing) needed to be removed.
The lift-over crossing supplied by Corus Cogifer has been designed to remove rail discontinuities. It was machined from a high performance Cogidur steel block which was factory-welded to the machined switch block. The Cogidur system has been previously used on the Canal Street scissors crossover on the NET where cast crossings (requiring new patterns) could not be manufactured to the desired lead times. Additionally, a number of specialist Cogidur turnouts have been supplied to the Croydon Tram and many other tramway networks around the world.
The new crossover has been manufactured in SEI 41GP and comprises two single 1 in 4 (25m radius) turnouts between the two parallel tracks, with a centre-to-centre dimension of 3709mm.
Each turnout requires a Kihn lift-over crossing to allow trams passing in the through directions to travel at speeds up to 30 km/h on the plain rail with no rail gaps. Trams using the crossover to traverse tracks must pass over the through rail on their flanges at a reduced speed not exceeding 5 km/h.
Service Manager at Corus Cogifer, David Walters, said: “As the intention is for traffic to use the through route predominantly – only using the crossover road during emergencies or engineering works - the lift-over crossing has proved a unique solution to this problem.
“The entire crossover was installed by GrantRail during the 2008 Spring Bank Holiday weekend.
To date, the crossover has been very successful and has virtually eliminated noise and vibration in the Royal Centre. Other UK tram systems have now expressed an interest in using the lift-over crossing technology in their networks where elimination of noise and vibration are a key concern.”
