Ballast leveling apparatus and method

A ballast leveling apparatus mounted on a ballast cleaning machine including a frame and adapted to move in an operating direction on a track including ties resting on a ballast bed having two shoulders laterally adjacent the track, the machine frame supporting a ballast excavating means for removing ballast from a region of the ballast bed underneath the track, a ballast screening arrangement for separating the removed ballast into cleaned ballast and waste, and conveyor means for redistributing cleaned ballast to the excavated region of the ballast bed, and the ballast leveling apparatus being comprised of

• (a) a pair of endless ballast leveling chains for distributing the redistributed cleaned ballast over the ballast bed and for leveling the distributed cleaned ballast,
• (b) a vertical pivot supporting a respective one of the endless ballast leveling chains for pivoting inwardly from a respective one of the ballast bed shoulders in a plane underneath the track,
• (c) a rotary drive for driving each ballast leveling chain, and
• (d) a power drive linking each ballast leveling chain to the machine frame for vertically adjusting the ballast leveling chain independently of the ballast excavating means.