A productive year for Manco Rail

Representatives from bespoke rail designers Manco Rail were out and about at AusRAIL to catch up with current customers and meet some potential new ones.

Director Ryan Black and general manager Jaclyn Vanderent said it was encouraging to see strong interest shown in the company’s range of new equipment released throughout the year.

Kicking off 2022 had been the latest version of the Manco rail boom, which Black said had been modified specifically for the rail industry.

“This new system has a EURO6 engine on it, so it’s emissions-compliant,” Black said. “We gutted out the hydraulic system and put a specialist rail compatible system in there.

“We upgraded the hydraulics slewing; by rotating 360 degrees, it means that you actually have to have the hydraulic hoses spinning at a continuous 360 as well.

“We had a lot of interest in the vehicle and a lot of people that had been supporting other competitors of ours are showing a real interest because of the benefits we exhibited.

“We got the kind of response we wanted for redesigning something that was already doing well in the marketplace.” road-rail vehicles (RRVs) in narrow, standard and broad gauges.

These days, RRVs are more than just vehicles and machinery that have been modified to operate both on conventional roads and on railways. They need to be robust, easy to operate and have strong safety capabilities.

Manco’s RRVs possess these qualities and are all traction-driven, which means they use full suite of Manco hi-rail, elevating work platform, wire support boom and instrumented pantograph equipment.

To support all these attachments and chassis modifications, the carrier vehicle had to be as precisely configured as a Swiss army knife.

“The vehicles are extremely well-engineered and designed to provide flex and twist to provide the strength,” Black said.