Safer, more versatile and durable turnouts
The most important features of our turnouts include the following:
- Fastening to wooden or concrete sleepers, with or without ballast.
- Articulated tongues, welded in thick web profiles or asymmetric low profiles with forged heels.
- Slide chairs treated with Nickel-Chromium, Molybdenum, rollers or grease.
- Prepared to weld to be welded to CWR (Continuous Welded Rail).
- For tracks on wood on ballast, concrete on ballast, ballastless concrete sleepers or ballastless tracks.
- For all types of rails existing on the market with different hardnesses.
- Adaptable to all types of existing rigid or elastic fastenings upon demand.
- Tongues in high profile or low assymetric profile with forged heel.
- Manganese steel crossings with natural hardness or pre-hardened by explosion. With flash-butt welded antennae for weldability to the track with aluminothermic welding.
Parts of a Turnout:
Switch area
The switch has the function of managing the direction of traffic on the direct or deviated track.
Tipically, it has movable tongues that divert the train in the desired direction.
The tongues move on bearings or slide bars to be coupled to the stock-rails, and are secured by a locking system.
Intermediate track
The intermediate track is the part of the turnout that connects the switch to the crossing area.
This typically consists of four rails with the perfect curvature to maintain the geometry of the turnout.
Generally, the intermediate track contains isolating joints in the deviated track.
Crossing Area
The crossing area is a crucial part of the turnout, since it is the only point where the line is really interrupted.
The crossing, a speciality of our production, has the function of correctly guiding the wheels in the intersection.
To ensure they go through the crossing safely, guard-rails are used in the outer track that limit the lateral movement of the axles.
Most common types of turnouts:
Simple turnout
Branch of a railway line into another two, called the direct track and deviated track, respectively.
Crossover
To connect the traffic of two tracks, generally parallel, using two turnouts with the same tangent and with each deviated an extension of another.
Double Crossover
A double crossover or bretelle is a type of double turnout in the form of a cross that allows two parallel tracks to be linked in both directions in a small space.
Double English Crossover
A crossing allows the two tracks to intersect with continuity. The double union also enables passage from one to the other between all of the opposing ends by means of four switches.
Crossing
Track apparatus that allows two tracks to cross with continuity, without letting one pass onto the other.
Comb Turnouts
The superimposition of other turnouts in the same direction in a very short section generates a figure known as “comb”. It is a very complex component.
Special Turnout with three or more lines
The function of these special turnouts that they make it possible for layouts with different track gauges to coexist. There are more than 27 possible cases. At Amurrio we specialise in all types of special configurations.