Machining of rails for GVB Infra Amsterdam

The ‘Concertgebouw square’ tramrails of tram line 16, which crosses the famous Van Gogh and Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, will be completely renewed by the City’s transport company GVB this summer.

A contract for the machining of new rails parts at Concertgebouw square was awarded to Niron Staal Amsterdam. GVB Infra Amsterdam, the Municipal Transport Company of Amsterdam, is responsible for the maintenance and new building activities of all tram-infra across the city. To accomplish all the maintenance GVB has their own dedicated workshop. This workshop includes an up-to-date milling machine with which they are able to machine tram rails, switches and crossings.

Marcel van der Veldt is team leader tramway production at GVB, asking him how come they needed an external partner for the job he says: “As our own production and workshop is in continuous running we needed an extra machining capacity and that we have found in Niron Staal Amsterdam. At first we explained the complexity of the machining of this type of rails in a technical pre-meeting. There it was decided that we would perform a trial by machining one of the rails part, after which we had enough trust in Niron Staal for delivering the required high quality machining”.

The contract awarded to Niron Staal included the machining of 7 pieces left rails – which (once combined by GVB) will form the complete 8x8 meters large heart of the 4 way crossing. To machine the 7 pcs left rails at the required quality Niron Staal used two types of machines, both part of the standard machinery Niron Staal offers. The largest machine used is the boring and milling machine Zayer 30 KCU [CNC], offering a horizontal X-as with range up to 8m, a vertical Y-as up to 2.5m and a spindle capacity up to 1.5m. The second one used is the horizontal boring and milling machine Soraluce TR-35 [CNC]. This machine offers a horizontal range up to 3.5m, a vertical range up to 1.6m and a spindle capacity of 1.2m.