Method for fixing a rail of a rail track with thermal conditioning of a rail portion, and associated rail machine

Abstract

In order to fix a rail of a rail track using a rail machine, the rail machine is moved in a working direction so that at all times a portion of the rail which is not attached to a cross-member of the rail track passes through a thermal conditioning zone of a thermal conditioning device of the rail machine, a temperature of a surface region of the portion of the rail passing through the thermal conditioning zone is modified using the thermal conditioning device by generating a non-homogeneous temperature distribution in the portion of the rail, and the portion of the rail is fixed to a cross-member of the rail track, after modification of the temperature of the surface region of the portion of the rail, without waiting for the temperature distribution in the portion of the rail to be homogenized.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.