CORROSION PROTECTION

AN IMPORTANT COMPONENT IN METROPOLITAN AND INTERCITY RAILWAY TRAFFIC

With their railway construction project between the cities of Stuttgart and Ulm in southern Germany, the Deutsche Bahn takes one step further in offering more attractive railway services. Alongside with the Stuttgart 21 project, it is this newly built railway line of roughly 60 kilometers between Wendlingen and Ulm that has a major share in that development. 

For a large part, the new tracks run along the A8 motorway. Car drivers are well familiar with the 485 m long and 85 m high Filstal Bridge. It is spectacular how it spans the Fils Valley between Mühlhausen and Wiesensteig and can be viewed in all its beauty by drivers passing the A8 along the Alb ascent.

Trains will pass the Swabian Alb plateau at a speed of up to 250 km per hour, passengers being able to profit from 15 minutes less travelling time on the stretch between Stuttgart and Ulm.

To electrify the tracks, a large number of steel masts had to be installed. Being exposed to different weather conditions all year round, they need a high degree of protection to prevent corrosion and thus avoid maintenance interventions. ZINKPOWER Calbe specializes exactly in this type of corrosion protection, the so-called Duplex System: several hundreds of tons of masts were first hot-dip galvanized and then color coated.

Since early this year, ZINKPOWER Calbe uses Green Zinc to galvanize its products, thereby reducing the carbon footprint of each mast only in the area of corrosion protection by 75 % or 150 kg of CO2.

Both pictures Copyright: picture alliance/dpa | Christoph Schmidt / galvanized poles ZINKPOWER