A few days ago, the Transportation Department of the Shougang Mining Company upgraded its railway maintenance and introduced its DC-32 stepping large line tamping machine. At present, 42,239 m of line maintenance work have been completed.

The positive effects of using this device are obvious. First, it promotes the improvement of labor efficiency. It is calculated that it takes 60 days for a large line tamping machine to cover 64 km. If the maintenance personnel were staffed according to the existing track, it would take 354 days to manually complete the same workload. Thus, the efficiency of the operation mode of using the large line tamping machine is five times higher than that of the existing manual tamping operation mode. Second, it reduces the labor cost. The maintenance cost of such a large-scale machine is only 9.06% that of the labor cost. Third, it promotes maintenance quality. When a rail track is maintained manually, it is necessary to elevate the line to make an uneven and sunken line smooth again. Generally, a line can only be manually elevated by 30–50 mm, but a large tamping machine can elevate the line by 70–120 mm. Moreover, the quality cycle of manual operation is about three months, while that of large-scale machine maintenance can reach more than 12 months. Fourth, it reduces the labor intensity. The introduction of the large tamping machine releases the linemen from the heaviest work of track lifting, lining and tamping, which greatly reduces the labor intensity for employees. Fifth, it optimizes the construction procedure. A one-stop operation mode is adopted to handle hanging sleepers and replace rubber pads, fishplates, concrete pillows, square pull rods, etc., thereby reducing subsequent labor costs.

Railway line maintenance in the mining area has gone through four stages. “One person holding one pickaxe” stage: this tamping operation relied on “brute strength”, and employees could only complete 25 m of line maintenance per day; “ND-4 tamping pickaxe” stage: employees needed hand-held tools to implement tamping, with which they could complete 40 m per day; “Gate-type tamper” stage: four workers pushed a “gate-type tamper” on the railway line and could complete 300 m per day, twice as much as before; “Large tamping machine” stage: in September of this year, when the large tamping machine first entered the mining area, only six employees were needed to complete an average of 3,000 m per day.

In the 14th Five-year Plan period, based on the “one-map scheduling system” management mode, the Transportation Department of the Mining Company has built an intelligent transport system and promoted the transformation and upgrading of high-quality development in railway transportation. The introduction of this large tamping machine has ended the 62-year history of manual railway track lifting, lining and tamping in the mining area. It is not only a measure to improve the quality of the railway lines, but also an active attempt to mechanize railway maintenance, opening a new chapter in the mechanized, automated and intelligent development of the transportation industry.