A drop table or wheel drop is a device used in railway engineering during maintenance that require the removal of locomotive or rolling stock

Rolling stock

Rolling stock comprises all the vehicles that move on a railway. It usually includes both powered and unpowered vehicles, for example locomotives, railroad cars, coaches and wagons...

 wheelsets. The machine is built in a drop pit allowing a locomotive or rolling stock to be rolled onto it, avoiding the need for heavy crane

Crane (railroad)

A railroad crane, is a type of crane used on a railroad for one of three primary uses: freight handling in goods yards, permanent way maintenance, and accident recovery work...

s or jacks to lift the vehicle off the rails.

The vehicle is placed over the drop table, and the connections attaching the wheelset to the vehicle are unfastened. This allows the wheel set to 'float' independently of the locomotive. The wheelset is lowered into the drop pit on a short section of rail, and a dummy rail, normally a part of the drop table machinery, is then inserted in the gap over the lowered wheelset. This enables the vehicle to be moved clear of the drop table on its remaining wheels, so that the removed wheelset can then be lifted out of the drop pit for maintenance work to be performed on it.

External links

• An example of a wheeldrop in use (with photos and web-movies)