Railway project for Liebherr crawler

25 February 2020

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A Liebherr LTR 1060 crawler crane, owned by construction group Frutiger, has been used for around a year for a railway project in Berne, Switzerland.

To increase the capacity of rail travel, an additional four-track railway station for regional trains will be built under the existing central station in Berne by 2027.

The Wylerfeld site extends for around 1200m in the north east of the city. Among other facilities, a new tunnel, which will enable trains to cross on different levels, is being built along the existing four-track section using the cut-and-cover method.

The LTR 1060 has been put to work on one of the many track sections which have been adjusted and expanded for this project.

There were both practical and financial reasons why the crane was chosen. The client hds first considered erecting tower cranes along the trench. However, this would have meant that an eleven metre high safety scaffold would have had to be constructed along the entire length of the track section to provide protection from the rail traffic next to the new track, involving trains passing every minute. Furthermore, this version would have taken up a good deal of the scarce area available on the construction site. “The LTR 1060 was chosen to guarantee rail safety even without a safety wall,” said Liebherr.

“The LTR 1060 is a flexible, manoeuvrable machine and was therefore the perfect solution for the site situation,” said Reto Mathis, manager of the mobile crane division at Frutiger, to explain the decision to use the small crawler crane. Moreover, the facility to move quickly or to move a long distance with a load on the hook makes this Liebherr crane ideal for this large site.

The LTR 1060 normally operates with a track width of just over 4m but, if necessary, its crawler carriers can be adjusted, both during operation and for travelling, to a width of just 3m, enabling it to manoeuvre through even narrow areas of the site.

The crane’s powerful telescopable lifting capacities are also being used to the full on the site in Berne. This means it can move material within the trench quickly and precisely. The LTR 1060’s work on the project is scheduled to last around two years.