Support beam
The support beam is mounted onto the first and last low-floor freight waggons in a composition for the needs of hanging the freight vehicles onto the classical waggon or traction vehicle. It can be easily disassembled from the vehicles, if necessary. During the loading and unloading, the support beam is swivelled on a hinge together with stops and traction equipment. This enables the undisturbed passage of highway vehicles.
When it comes to construction solution, we can distinguish two types of support beams: one that was developed by Siemens and the other one that was developed by Talbot.
Such a beam construction is the result of the intention to disturb the work on the neighbouring railway track to the least possible extent. In order to create the runway for land vehicles during the reloading operations within a terminal it is necessary to position the waggons as close as possible, which is enabled by the fact that each waggon has got only one stop at its end instead of two, and the fact that stops on waggons that are to be connected are positioned diagonally one towards the other.
