It takes a skilled crew just one hour to remove and replace the bogies on a locomotive at Junee Railway Workshops (JRW)
As part of the refit of GrainCorp locomotive 48212, the wheels and suspension needed to be replaced.
It’s no easy task however, with two cranes and seven people needed to complete the job.
The rebuilt bogies are put on the line first before the locomotive body is shunted into place, even without the engine, a locomotive body can weigh in at 35 tonnes.
Two (Liebherrr) cranes, in this case -Â 200 Â tonne (LTM 1200-5.1)Â and 90 tonne (LTM 1090-2) – are used to lift the locomotive up by Wagga Mobile Cranes
Slings are attached to lift points on the locomotive… Picture: Declan Rurenga
Each bogies weighs five tonne with four people needed to push the wheels out from under the body, before the replacements are wheeled in and the locomotive body lowered onto them.
The new bogies’ wheels measure up to 85 millimetres thick when they are first used by the locomotive before dropping to just 40mm thick when they are replaced.
JRW co-owner Andrew Clinton said replacing bogies was a precise operation which had been done 40 to 50 times over the past two years.
Picture: Declan Rurenga
