Rail Scales: Advanced Rail-based Weighing Technology

Advanced weighing technology, such as rail scales, are important for a variety of industrial applications, especially in bulk material logistics. Rail scale weighing technology plays an indispensable role in rail operations to monitor product deliveries and avoid penalties on account of overloading.

Rail scales are otherwise referred to as railroad scales or train scales and used by many railway operators, rail vehicle maintenance workshops and mining companies. Whether you want to weigh rail cars when they are in at halt or as they move across a section of the railroad track the rail scales offer a reliable and accurate solution for you.

Demand for Rail Scales

Rail scales are simple, accurate and economical rail car weighing solutions. There is a wide array of accurate, reliable, affordable and robust rail scales that helps you to determine the accurate weight in order to prepare an invoice to be sent to the client for the total amount of products shipped. Some of the most popular are the rail scales provided at WalzScale.com - a global industry leader in rail scale and truck scale systems.

You can also have the peace of mind that the shipper is not overcharging and helps you to assess the weight of cars and wagons to collect the freight revenue. It is also necessary to install rail scales to avoid overloading penalties and to avoid erratic loading which can cause immense damage to the cars, wagons and the rail track infrastructure leading to derailments. Train scales are also crucial to considerably reduce high impact loads especially at track joints, crossings and turnouts.

Two Primary Types of Rail Scales

There are two primary types of rail scales. Below we go into greater detail about each.

Static rail scales

This type of motionless weighing ensures high degree of reliability and accuracy. As the name implies, static rail scales are available for weighing rail cars when they are motionless. In short they are specially designed for weighing an individual rail car when they are stopped on the weigh scale.

This rail car weigh scale system incorporates a weigh bridge that converts just a section of the railroad track into a weighing scale. The static railroad scales combine exceptional durability, proven performance and absolute reliability to assure years of dependable service.

In-motion rail scales

Here, in-motion rail scales are installed in the track and they weigh the train when it passes over it. They are simple to install and provides an excellent solution for spot checking to maximize car loading and eliminate penalties on account of excessive loading. These types of rail scales are absolutely safe, highly reliable and incredibly accurate to facilitate weighing of trains even at high speeds.

This eliminates costs and the hazards of detaching and placing of each car or wagon for weighing. It also assures transporting of goods to the point of destination faster. They incorporate advanced weighing software for efficiently managing and reporting the train weights. The weight data can be stored or transferred to remote locations with the help of a phone line or internet.

Rail scales are indeed crucial for the smooth rail car weighing operations. These scales are also available in multiple capacities and configurations to suit individual site requirements. Train scales are cost-effective, easy to install and designed to create a rugged and accurate heavy duty weighing system. Rail scale weighing technology is used in a multitude of railway operations from agriculture, mining, recycling to chemical applications.