Railway crossings: driving the structure under the railway by means of oleodinamic jacks

Abstract

"The best level crossing is a dead crossing", those involved are accustomed to say Yet, until a short time ago, eliminating these conflictive crossings not only implied a great deal of money but prolonged building work, with the all too familiar sequel of precautions, speed restrictions and problems for rail traffic. However, a brand new system, based on using hydraulic jacks to drive the concrete structure of the crossing to a different level in the track embankment, allows the execution in a few weeks of what before took long months. Use of this new method acquires great importance, especially if one considers that 200 km/hour tracks virtually cannot have crossings at the same level.