Rail boards are highly specialized dock boards made for boxcar and railcar loading and unloading. Railcar to dock is a highly specialized application that can require a dock board ranging anywhere from 22,000 lbs. on up to 40,000, 60,000, or even 90,000 lbs. ANSI certified rail boards are manufactured with special lift equipment and attachments, and they are designed with shift usage and transit cycles in mind.

Rail boards are engineered for use on all types of railway boxcars. This includes highly specialized boxcars for lumber and paper transit, and it also includes refrigerated cars of all types. Boards feature an all welded steel construction to provide a sure and reliable platform for forklift access. Both rectangular and flared design models are available through your material handling account manager.

Additional reinforcement for each unit is provided by a box understructure which grounds the unit in position and increases safety. Box understructure bumpers fit around the car latches to protect door latch. Each rail board comes with a heavy duty drop ring that allows it to be lowered via forklift into position. Each unit features a locking ring design that secures it to the dock, and lifting loops fold flat into recessed pockets.

Due to the highly specialized nature of rail boards, it is necessary to customize the rail boards to your specific requirements. Most of this data can be gathered by answering a series of simple yes/no questions and by taking some basic measurements prior to placing a call. Having the following information ready will ensure that your rail board is optimized to match your specific dock conditions.

Identify the narrowest car door located at the rail yard. (Generally door sizes range 6-20 feet).
Determine if cargo loading and unloading will prevent a minimum of 8 inches of rail board lip from resting on the floor of the rail car.
Identify which material handling equipment will travel across the rail board (fork truck, etc).
Identify the load capacity of your material handling equipment.
Yes or no: is the face of your dock square?
What dock projections, if any, are 10 inches above the top of the dock surface?
Provide the width of the narrowest opening that the dock board must pass through.
Provide your desired dock board width. The dock board must ultimately be 2 to 4 inches less than the minimum car door width encountered at the rail yard.
Provide the desired width of dock board flair. Flair gives dockside lip of greater width than the car side lip.

The dimensions, features, and capacity of the board will vary based on whether or not it is a box car, refrigerator car, all door car, flat car, or plug door car. To correctly design the rail board, your material handling specialist will also need a minimum of two X dimension measurements from the inside of the rail to the dock face.

Measurements should exclude any projections, and each measurement should be taken 20 feet away from the center of the dock board position. It is critical to provide dimensions for each location in which the board will be used. If the board is used along a long, open dock, provide X dimensions at 20 feet increments as well. Next, make line level and string measurement of at least Y dimension measurement from the top of the rail to the top of the dock for each rail board location.

This information will enable the manufacturing facility to ensure that the board has the proper width, length, bends, capacity, and understructure for maximum performance and safety.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 17th, 2010 at 2:56 pm and is filed under Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.