Method and apparatus for rolling rails

Abstract

The rail is rolled by the steps of breakdown rolling, reforming rolling, first and second universal rolling, head-wheel rolling and base-wheel rolling in that order. The reforming rolling is performed using a pair of horizontal rolls provided with a reforming pass and a head-wheel pass and a vertical roll adapted to reduce the base of the rail, with the paired horizontal rolls, together with said vertical roll, shifted and set in such a position where the reforming pass matches the pass line of the first universal rolling pass. The head-wheel rolling is performed using the same paired horizontal rolls and a vertical roll adapted to reduce the head of the rail, with the paired horizontal rolls, together with said vertical roll, shifted and set in such a position where the head-wheel pass matches the pass line of the second universal rolling pass. The rail rolling apparatus comprises a breakdown stand, a sizing head-wheel stand having a pair of horizontal rolls provided with a reforming pass and a head-wheel pass, a vertical roll adapted to reduce the base of the rail, a vertical roll adapted to reduce the head of the rail, and mechanism for shifting the rolls, a universal stand, and a base-wheel rolling stand.

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.