Thousands of trucks drive across our highways every day, transporting containers. Once they arrive at their destination, the containers must be transshipped. This is where either a crane or a forklift is needed - and an employee to operate these machines. This costs time, money and ties up resources. So not the best choice. A much more elegant solution is the space-saving Linear Chain - made by GROB Antriebstechnik in Sinsheim. Because rail freight has many advantages: safety, climate protection, planning, and reliability. But what happens when the goods arrive at the final station? How does the container get from the rail to the road? And how can turnaround times be minimized, and handling costs kept under control? These are all good questions to which the Swiss company InnovaTrain AG has found convincing answers and developed an innovative solution that has the potential to conquer the world market. The central element of this solution is the Linear Chain by GROB. But first things first:
What's the current situation?
When a freight train arrives at its final destination, the cargo container needs to be unloaded from the train onto a truck. This is typically done using a crane or a very large forklift (reach stacker). However, this also requires a driver, who must be available at the exact moment the truck arrives to minimize turnaround times and prevent handling costs from unnecessarily increasing the cost of transport. It's clear that such a solution is time-consuming, expensive, and inflexible. Therefore, there is a need for a loading concept that is as independent as possible and allows the driver to handle the cargo containers themselves.
A genius product now provides the solution
An innovative loading concept with integrated chain conveyors has been in use very successfully in Switzerland since 2011. For example, railCare, the rail logistics subsidiary of the Swiss food wholesaler Coop, has been using the ContainerMover-3000 since 2011 with growing success, and it's only a matter of time before neighboring countries such as Germany, France, or Italy also open up to this groundbreaking technology.
Now, the Linear Chain takes the lead role
In both rail and road freight transport, environmental conditions can be quite harsh. In summer, temperatures can quickly reach 35°C (95°F), while in cold winter nights, they can easily drop to -25°C (-13°F) or even lower. This is why InnovaTrain engineers had a clear requirement for a perfectly functioning cargo container handling concept: "The market demands a simple solution that requires as little maintenance and as trouble-free as possible. Customers want handling times to be as short as possible today," says Beat Wegmüller, Head of Development at InnovaTrain.
The solution needed to be simple, maintenance-free, and trouble-free, consisting of only a few components. The result was an innovative solution with the potential to become a global solution. For with the Linear Chain from GROB Antriebstechnik GmbH in Sinsheim, InnovaTrain engineers found the perfect product for this task. The handling system consists of a lifting and lateral shifting construction that is modularly mounted on the truck chassis. The counterpart on the container mover is the wagon adapter on the wagon, which is secured via the standard cargo container pins and thus connects the construction on the truck chassis to the wagon.
The GROB Linear Chain pushes the container from the truck
Fast transshipment in 5 minutes - Thanks to the space-saving Linear Chain
The truck drives to the unloading station. Sensors are used to position the truck at the wagon, the support legs are extended, and the height is adjusted. Under the cargo container are two so-called "mover beams" that are equipped with air bellows. The cargo container is lifted out of the truck's pins using compressed air from the remote control. Now, two pairs of chain conveyors are moved via two hydraulic motors, each of which moves a rolling mover beam laterally towards the wagon. The cargo container stands on the two mover beams and is thus moved from the truck onto the wagon (during unloading). When loading the truck, it goes exactly in the other direction. Now the four chain conveyors pull the cargo container onto the truck. A chain is therefore used here that can both "pull and push".
