CLYDE TECHNOLOGY BENEFITS SOUTH CENTRAL RAIL
Clyde Materials Handling has secured a major contract with a major civil engineering contractor to provide a sand handling system for a major rail operators new depot train care programme at five depots in the south of England for South Central Rail.
A major difficulty with the upgrade and implementation of the new depot train care programme was to overcome the associated problems of train sanding. Sand is used to improve vehicle traction in slippery/wet weather conditions and for braking from high speed. Sand handling is often seen as a forgotten chore with operators having to manually handle bags of sand to replenish empty sand boxes. This practice brought about other problems associated with sand storage, ie spillage and dust emission.
When the civil engineering company sought to change this practice they contacted Clyde Materials Handling, a leading supplier of a wide range of pneumatic conveying equipment and with previous experience of designing and supplying sand handling systems which are environmentally and user friendly whilst complying with all Health and Safety standard requirements. In recent years Clyde's systems have been supplied to Sheffield Super Tram,  Rotterdam RET System and Nottingham Tram.
Using their test facilities in Doncaster, Clyde were able to demonstrate to the civil engineering company and South Central Engineering their capability in overcoming such obstacles as third rail electrification, limited headroom and distance between roadways. They were also able to demonstrate that sand could be conveyed pneumatically, long distances from a bulk storage point to sanding points alongside roadways. This method of conveying sand in a dense phase mode, eliminates the risk of pipe wear and uses low air consumption within a totally enclosed, dust free system.
Clyde's system allows for cost effective, clean, dry bulk storage of sand in silos away from the point of use. Sand is conveyed pneumatically via a CD positive pressure Dense phase pump to the sanding points and enters the dispensing vessels via the Clyde Dome Valve which is designed to cut through a moving or static head of material and providing positive shut off valve. The operator then fills sand boxes with the use of a custom designed sand nozzle, similar in type to a petrol pump style filling system which stops sand flow when sand reaches the end of the nozzle. The system allows access to both sides of the train to service all sand points simultaneously, it is dust and spillage free, easy to use and requires very little operator intervention.
Working within a strict time frame, Clyde's project team aim to provide a state of the art train sand handling solution for South Central Rail depots at Littlehampton, Selhurst, Streatham Hill, Brighton and Eastbourn and assisting South Central Rail with their stated aim of keeping clean its trains and depots and enabling them to provide a long term reliable service.
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