Tractor-Mounted Ballast Regulator

a track machine used to batch ballast for the road, fill ballast boxes, and grade the ballast section during the construction of railroads; sometimes used to repair an operating road.

The equipment of a tractor-mounted ballast regulator is mounted on a crawler tractor adapted to travel both on rails and on dirt roads. The removable equipment includes a front shield and two side wings fastened by hinges. The shield and wings can be set at various heights, which changes the thickness of the layer being graded. During operation, the wings are opened up at an angle to the direction of travel and held in place by telescoping struts. The maximum spread of the wings is 6.1 m. When the machine is moving, ballast is forced from the shoulder onto the roadbed. The machine has an operating speed of 2–4 km/hr. The wings can be placed along the frame of the tractor for transporting. During repair work, a moving tractor-mounted ballast regulator can remove ballast from the roadbed where the track and ties have been removed if the wings are connected to one another in front of the machine to form a dihedral angle.

Tractor-mounted ballast regulators have a turret crane and a turning trailer device to which the cable of a crawler track jack is connected. The track jack is a plate that is introduced under the ties and that lifts the track when the machine moves. Tractor-mounted ballast regulators can cover up to 4 km per shift.