Rerailing a tram with a front end loader

Derailed trams aren’t an uncommon occurrence, but using a front end loader to get it back onto the tracks is – an activity captured by Вечерний Краснотурьинск in the Russian city of Krasnoturinsk.

They provide the backstory here (via Google Translate):

Today, March 13, at noon a small incident occurred. On Popov Street, in the area between Furmanov and Chapaev streets, the tram went off the rails.

At this moment, the tram was driven by a driver Natalia Chudinova, who has been working for almost 24 years.

“I was not scared, it was a normal working situation,” says Natalia. “This has happened more than once before. Today there were no passengers. The tram just went to run-in after repairs.”

The tram went off the rails at once due to two factors – it is ice and dirt formed on the rails and in the track between the rails. As Nataliya says, in cold weather, a lot of snow accumulates on the tracks too, but it can be successfully pushed through with tram wheels. The situation with ice is more complicated: there are no rails under it and it is not always forced through. This is what happened today.

An emergency recovery team arrived at the scene quickly. The tram was brought back on the road with the help of an excavator and the work of five people. After the vehicle was returned on the way, workers began to clear the rails in order to avoid another derailment.

That’s some quick thinking.

How about a crane

This blog post shows how from the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv rerails their trams – a truck mounted crane is used to pick up one end of the tram, and lower it back onto the tracks.

Or just a big truck and steel plates

Here we see a derailed tram in Melbourne, Australia.

Z3.229 skewed across the tracks on Elizabeth Street, just north of La Trobe Street

Steel plates are put beneath the derailed wheels.

Getting out the steel rerailing ramps beneath the derailed bogie

Then the tramway recovery truck is coupled up to the derailed tram via a towbar.

Attaching the towbar between recovery vehicle R10 and tram Z3.229

Then pulls the tram forwards.

Recovery vehicle R10 ready to pull tram Z3.229 back onto the rails

As the steel ramps direct the wheels back towards the rails.

Pulling the tram forwards, the ramps directing the wheels back towards the rails

Until the tram is back on the tracks.

Dropping the pantograph of Z3.229

The only evidence left behind – gouge marks in the asphalt.

Gouge marks in the asphalt from the derailed bogie

Further reading

More on the Krasnoturinsk tramway network by Yury Maller.

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