Following the relocation of
Designed by DUO in conjunction with Tarmac engineers, the BDU has been manufactured and installed by DUO Manufacturing and incorporates seven stock bunkers with a belt speed of 1200tph, enabling a train to be unloaded in just over an hour.
Located within a very tight footprint alongside the Paddington mainline, the £13 million project has provided the only concrete plant within the City of Westminster.
Owned and operated by Tarmac, the project was commissioned in the first quarter of 2015 with the
When the facility is fully functional a minimum of three trains per week will each bring 1,200 tonnes of limestone from the Midlands, with gravel from Greenwich, although dependant on demand, this can be increased to suit.
Currently the BDU is only operational for road vehicles who deliver aggregate into a Liebherr feed hopper, this is then delivered to an elevator which then delivers by chute onto the CV03 conveyor which is situated on the east side of the GTU tower. Here it is further conveyed and then stockpiled by a reversible shuttle conveyor in the storage bin facility. This material is then used for concrete production with the end-product being sold to construction projects within the local area of Westminster.
The new rail discharge system at Paddington has been designed to emulate the operating philosophy and utilises design features and components of previous successful systems built by DUO Manufacturing.
The new bottom discharge unit is housed within a secure, purpose-built building which is fully sheeted with single skinned cladding and equipped with two motorized roller shutter doors. A specially constructed bridge structure is designed to carry 25.5 tonnes maximum axle loads from 104-tonne gross weight wagons and locomotives to pass over two underground receiving hoppers. Two electrically operated, rail-mounted, wagon door opening trolleys are provided along the discharge section, which are manually positioned and held in place by a foot brake.
Material is discharged into twin lined hoppers of 78 tonnes total heaped capacity and then fed onto twin 7.2m long x 1800mm wide conveyors (CV01/02) which are designed to handle 2,000tph. In turn material is fed onto the 115m x 400mm wide inclined transfer conveyor (CV03) which is supported on steel trestles with the GTU/drive being supported by a tower. This covered conveyor leaves the discharge building and then enters the BDU building discharging material onto (CV04) conveyor through the high-level intersection housed in the bin penthouse annex, tied into the storage bin structure. The reversible shuttle conveyor (CV05) is 18.5m long x 1800mm wide and feeds the material from CV04 to the designated bin department. This storage bin facility has an approximate live capacity of 3,120 tonnes and is split into seven compartments.
DUO Manufacturing manufactured, installed and commissioned the Rail Unloading and Stockpiling Plant, including all electrical control equipment, complete with cabling, wiring and all necessary accessories, conveyor pull wires, site lighting and warning beacons and all interfaces with Liebherr equipment.
Duncan Dwyer, the plant’s manager, said: “We are very happy with the plant, DUO Manufacturing was tasked with providing us with an efficient, workable system and they have successfully managed to meet our full expectations in every aspect. As well as completing the project on time and to budget, we were very impressed with their Health and Safety procedures and culture."
“This plant is a huge investment and quite a unique operation in terms of overall cost within the city. There is a high demand for concrete in the Westminster area and when Crossrail complete the rail link we will be able to synchronise those deliveries with demand.”
