The Robel train in Belgium: 'Our trickiest undertaking yet'

At the moment, Infrabel is fully engaged in renewing its railway infrastructure. To realise this daunting task, Railpro was asked to assist Infrabel by deploying its Robel train in the area of Liege. As from this location, about 35 kilometres of old rails of 300 metres each are being loaded and transported to Schaarbeek (Brussels), where they are unloaded again. This operation takes up a month of hard and non-stop work.

The Liege area is characterised by large differences in height. In addition, the train trajectories are often not straight. This makes loading activities risky, especially in the case of long-welded rails of 300 metres each. Apart from years of experience, it requires an ironclad communication between the Robel train crew and the team in  track to complete this job successfully. In order to cause as little disruption to the train traffic as possible and to guarantee a maximum level of security for the staff members, the loading activities took place at night.

We prepared this operation very well. By mapping out all the risks prior to the start of the project and take measures accordingly in collaboration with the Belgian railway management, delays during the track possession period could be avoided. Furthermore, some innovations to our Robel train have made it possible to load and unload the old rails in a quicker and safer manner.

Learn more about our Robel train deployments in the Netherlands.

Our Robel group consists of 5 professionals who are committed to achieve the best results on a 24/7 basis. Armed with years of experience, they can complete even the most difficult job flawlessly. Until now, this has been our most long-running job yet. But we are already looking forward to our next project!