Company spotlight: MASCHINENFABRIK LIEZEN UND GIESEREI GESMBH

Q: Product quality is one of Maschinenfabrik Liezen und Gießerei GesmbH (MFL’s) essential objectives. How does MFL work to achieve this objective?
A: For us, the most important aspect for achieving high product quality is having experienced and well educated employees. Our employees are responsible for realising the high quality aims of our company. MFL is well known for the good quality, productivity and innovation of its products.

Q: Which regions do you feel are growing rail markets and would benefit from your services?
A: Our company delivers machinery for the steel and railway industry. During the last years there was a great demand on machines for the production of axles, wheels and rails all over the world. Workshops have upgraded their lines for the production of high-speed rails and wheels. Also, a lot of investment for the maintenance of existing rail track has been done in order to increase and conserve the quality. MFL has had the great pleasure to install its equipment in a lot of workshops all over the world. From my point of view, the railway market especially in China, Russia, India and the Middle East will continue to grow in the near future.

Q: What are the advantages of using MFL’s railmilling technology to prolong the life of rails?
A: The MFL mobile railmilling train is able to produce a very exact rail cross profile. This is an optimum condition for the wheel/rail system. Also, the removal of short pitch corrugation, head checks and geometric defects is very economic and can be done in one pass.

Q: What are the advantages of milling compared to grinding?
A: There are lots of advantages of milling compared to grinding. Milling does not produce dust, dirt and sparks. Due to the reason that no sparks are produced, milling avoids the danger of fire. The milling technology is also environmentally friendly because all arising chips are immediately removed by a suction device. No residues of dust are left. Due to the shape of the miller, the cross profile is very accurate after the initial milling process.

Q: Tell us about the technology MFL supplied on the Schweerbau milling train for the work on the London Underground.
A: MFL has developed and manufactured a railmilling train for Schweerbau which is operated on the London Underground as well as on the German Railways. The big challenge was developing a train suitable for the structure gauge of the London Underground as well as for the high-speed railway lines of the German Railway. Therefore we had to produce a tunnel machine (limited space) combined with a high efficient milling machine. Based on our customer’s requirements we have manufactured a machine with a milling head diameter of 1.4m. For the operation in tunnels we had to install a special conditioning system in order to guarantee the process reliability. Due to the lack of space in the tunnel we also had to develop a new suction system to reach the required suction capacity. The realisation of this project was quite difficult but finally the machine is working fully satisfactory for several years in the network of German Railways and London Underground.

Q: Tell us about the work MFL has done with the Kaluga rail repair equipment plant Remputmash.
A: This project followed the Schweerbau project and it is a great challenge as well. The rail track of the Russian Railways requires a big removal rate. Therefore MFL had to develop a more efficient milling concept. The new modular design of this machine matches exactly the requirements and conditions of the Russian Railways. The complete milling machine will be produced in cooperation with the manufacturer of the vehicle, company JSC Kaluga plant ‘Remputmash’. The machine will be finished at the end of 2010 and will start working for the Russian Railways subsequently. This is the first railmilling machine working in Russia. This shows that the economic and quality advantages of the milling process compared to the grinding process have been recognised and we expect further expansion of the milling technology in this area.

Q: What to you expect from the future?
A: We found a great interest at the global market with these two innovative projects. There are lots of prospective customers which are interested in railmilling technology. The customers know about the problems with head checks and geometrical defects and the economic and environmental advantages of milling technology. For these reasons we expect increasing interest in this product.

Q: Which innovations can be expected by MFL in the future?
A: MFL is moving in a very innovative market which makes continuous advancement and development indispensable. At the moment we are concentrating on increasing the milling speed. The development is not finished but certainly we will be able to provide more detailed information during the next year. So there will be lots of news to hear from MFL in the future.