More than 50 years have passed since prestressed concrete sleepers were introduced on conventional lines in the JR East service area. As these parts deteriorate with age and they become due for replacement, we have been promoting the replacement of prestressed concrete sleepers with elastic materials in order to reduce the amount of maintenance work required, starting in FY2017. The Technical Center has developed technology to increase the efficiency of sleeper replacement, allowing the mechanization of rail fastening, which has been carried out by hand until now, and has developed a new model of gripper that can carry out sleeper removal, insertion, and fastening as a single operation. Moving forward, on-site performance will be confirmed in order to improve efficiency and reduce man-hours.
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