AF bridge

AF bridge

Overburden conveyor bridges were developed for East Germanys saxon and lusatian brown coal or lignite mining areas. There layers of lignite and overburden are horizontally and rarely disturbed. Under these geological conditions intoduction of overburden conveyor bridges in 1924 meant a leap in economy of overburden handling. They are used in combination with up to three bucket chain excavators. The bridge and excavator combination is operated in a kind of strip mining regime. It is running on railway tracks along a trench, removing overburden from the lignite deposit at one side and dumping the spoil at the opposite, mined out site. Turning the upperworks of the excavators together with the bucket chain around their vertical axis allows adjustment of the bucket chain to the excavation progress. Once a 10 m strip of overburden has been removed, the railway tracks are shiftet sideways.
Up to the year 1945 25 conveyor bridges of various designs had been built for Saxon and Lustian lignite mines. Right after the end of WW II some of them were dismantled and transported into the Soviet Union, where they were reassembled and put back into operation at suitable locations. Initially, conveyor bridges were custom built for each mine. After WW II however, development in East Germany shifted towards standardized designs. In the year 1983 15 conveyor bridges were in use in East German lignite mines, all but three standard types. After the merger in 1990, the number of lignite mines decreased considerably resulting in scrapping of many conveyor bridges.
The latest and biggest conveyor bridge is the the F60 type, designed to remove up to 60 m deep layers of overburden. Between the two supports the bridge is 270 metres wide. Both supports are running on railroad tracks. The extension arm for dumping spoil is another 170 metres long. Its service weight is 13,150 metric tons. In order to move around a mine during operation, the lenghth of the bridge can be can be adjusted by ± 15 metres, it can also pivot around the support at the excavation side. It is connected with two Es 3150 or Es 3750 type bucket chain excavators. By the addition of a third bucket chain excavator and an 150 m long auxiliary connecting bridge even deeper layers of overburden can be removed. The combination of one F60 type conveyor bridge and two excavators moves at a speed of 5 - 10 metres/min along the tracks.
Even in East Germanys lignite mining areas, conveyor bridges and their attendant bucket chain excavators are gradually being replaced by combinations of bucket wheel excavators and spreaders, which are running on crawlers and therefore more flexible in operation.
The asset is scripted, allowing movement of the conveyor bridge combination along the tracks as well as the bucket chains to be be turned on and off in Surveyor.

Author: K. Bernhard, U. Nagel, E. Schueler

AF bridge
• $screenshot$.jpg 24.40KB
bruecke
af_bruecke.im 594.91KB
afb_dach.texture.txt 31 bytes
afb_dach.tga 192.04KB
afb_gitter.bmp 96.05KB
afb_gitter.texture.txt 55 bytes
afb_gitter.tga 96.04KB
afb_grau.texture.txt 31 bytes
afb_grau.tga 812 bytes
afb_grau_d.texture.txt 33 bytes
afb_grau_d.tga 812 bytes
afb_querverband.bmp 48.05KB
afb_querverband.texture.txt 65 bytes
afb_querverband.tga 48.04KB
afb_wand.texture.txt 31 bytes
afb_wand.tga 384.04KB
drehgestelle
drehgestell.texture.txt 34 bytes
drehgestell.tga 192.04KB
drehgestell_doppelt.im 66.99KB
rad.texture.txt 26 bytes
rad.tga 192.04KB
fabrikfenster.bmp 48.05KB
fabrikfenster.texture.txt 61 bytes
fabrikfenster.tga 48.04KB
foerderband.texture.txt 34 bytes
foerderband.tga 48.04KB
gelaender_rot.texture.txt 36 bytes
gelaender_rot.tga 812 bytes
gitter.bmp 192.05KB
gitter.texture.txt 47 bytes
gitter.tga 192.04KB
• config.txt 12.16KB

Private use only.

VE48: This asset uses an obsolete trainz-build number. Trainz-build numbers below 3.5 are no longer supported.
VE39: The texture 'bruecke/afb_grau.tga' is a uniform color.
VE39: The texture 'bruecke/afb_grau_d.tga' is a uniform color.
VE39: The texture 'bruecke/gelaender_rot.tga' is a uniform color.
VE107: The high-detail meshes total more than 10000 polygons. This may have a negative impact on performance: 0: 35364
VE109: The low-detail meshes total more than 500 polygons. This may have a negative impact on performance: 0: 35364