| 摘要 |
<p>An apparatus (100, 700) is disclosed for handling railway sleepers and placing them with a desired spacing. A mobile chassis is supported at either end by a suitable tractor (102, 104). On the chassis (112) there is carried an elongate support (114) long enough to span several sleepers, with a number of flexible tethers (126) depending from respective points spaced along the support. The tethers are adapted to suspend a batch of sleepers simultaneously. An alignment template extends beneath the elongate support and is formed so as to engage the suspended batch of sleepers simultaneously and fix their positions. A mechanism is provided whereby the alignment template and suspended sleepers are made moveable so as to permit an efficient sequence of lifting, aligning and depositing batches of sleepers, without the need for fine manual adjustment. In one embodiment, the alignment template (122) is formed on the underside of the chassis structure (112), while the elongate support is a beam extending above the chassis. Various methods of deployment are described, and the apparatus may be adapted for laying fourteen or even twenty-eight sleepers in one batch.</p> |
