The investment allows Story Plant to upgrade and refurbish its fleet of road rail plant in line with Network Rail certification requirements. Additionally, the company has taken the opportunity to not only upgrade but also introduce improvements in performance, safety and reliability.
The Stertil Koni Earthlifts are used to raise wheeled excavator-based road rail vehicles with a future capability to raise tracked variants using a bespoke designed track carrier. Each Stertil Koni heavy-duty Earthlift provides a safe lifting capacity of 10 tonnes which, when used as a set of four, provides an overall lifting capacity of 40 tonnes.
“Prior to purchasing the Stertil Koni Earthlifts, we relied upon workshop pits which restricted where and how works could take place,” says Mark Bruce, head of technical development at Story Plant. “The Earthlifts now give us the opportunity and flexibility to work on machines anywhere in the workshop to maximise available space whilst having multiple projects ongoing at any one time.”
A key factor in Story Plant’s decision to specify the Stertil Koni Earthlifts is the model’s Active Energy Retrieval System, which regenerates energy on the lowering cycle. The new system increases the number of lifting cycles by about 35%, compared to a fully-charged set of wireless mobiles under maximum load.
The heavy-duty Earthlift also benefits from the incorporation of a wireless mesh connectivity system that’s been specially developed for industrial applications.
For added safety and performance, the eBright Smart Control System also shows how many columns in the set are being used and the battery status of each column. Safety is further enhanced by an independent mechanical locking system, incorporated into each column.
“Our projects are intensive over the duration of an upgrade,” says Mark Bruce. “Various stages in a project require access to different areas of machines as they are stripped and reassembled. We generally have five ongoing projects at any one time taking an average of 15 weeks per project. However, where an unplanned repair is required, the Earthlifts give us immediate access to the underside of machines outside of planned activities if required.”