Skyjack Keeps the Channel Tunnel on Track

Skyjack has several products working at Europe’s busiest rail connection. Managed by Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel carries more than 20 million passengers a year between England and France.

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Skyjack has several products working at Europe’s busiest rail connection. Managed by Eurotunnel, the Channel Tunnel carries more than 20 million passengers a year between England and France.

Four Skyjack machines help Eurotunnel’s teams with maintenance and repair work in the tunnel, on the terminal and in the train workshop. The Skyjacks provide a complete solution for all aerial work needs at the site.

An SJ46 AJ articulating boom is used in the tunnel and helps work on all manner of equipment installed within it, such as lighting, ventilation devices and the overhead catenary system. On top of this, the SJ46 AJ offers the perfect platform tool height to reach every part of the tunnel and the space to host two workers at a time. The boom features a function unique to Skyjack’s Articulating Boom Lifts –SKYRISERTM.

The SKYRISERTM feature ensures that the riser and main pivot point connecting the fly boom to the riser, travel in a straight vertical line. Movement in a true vertical manner, without drifting forward or back, reduces the amount of repositioning the operator needs to do in order to stay close to a façade.

Two SJ16 self-propelled vertical mast lifts are tasked with maintenance. When working on raised sections of track, the SJ16’s compact dimensions allow the base to travel beneath the Eurotunnel Shuttle, while the platform can enter or travel between carriages above. When the Eurotunnel Shuttle is on ground-level track, the SJ16’s working height allows it to reach over the train carriage to access the roof with ease.

Eurotunnel’s compact rough-terrain scissor lift is used on the 10 railway platforms at the Eurotunnel terminal in Folkestone, a port town located on the English Channel and the shortest crossing point from France. The SJ6826 RT is also the perfect size to fit through toll booths and travel to all areas of the terminal with ease.

“We’ve got tunnel maintenance, works trains and platforms to look after. Our engineers find these machines quick to deploy. They can access any area of the works trains or workshop safely and with ease,” says Roland Hague, senior technician at Eurotunnel.

Opened in 1994, more than 300 trains go through the Channel Tunnel every day, it is operational 24 hours a day 365 days a year. 

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