LORAM Maintenance of Way, Inc.
| Private | |
| Industry | Railroad maintenance equipment and services provider |
| Founded | 1954 in Harmel, Minnesota, U.S. |
| Founder | Fred C. Mannix |
| Headquarters | Hamel, Minnesota, United States |
|
Area served
|
Worldwide |
| Website | www |
Loram Maintenance of Way, Inc. (North American reporting mark: LMIX) is a railroad maintenance equipment and services provider. Loram provides rail track maintenance services to freight, passenger, and transit railroads worldwide, as well as sells and leases equipment which performs these functions.
Loram Maintenance of Way was founed in 1954 in Hamel, Minnesota, in the United States by Canadian businessman Fred C. Mannix. The company name is a portmanteau derive from the phrase "long-range Mannix".
Loram initially acted as a contractor for railways, cleaning ballast on track beds. The rough edges of ballast rock not only supports the ties and holds them in place, it helps water drain away from the track bed. Over time, ballast becomes clogged with earth, weeds, and debris, inhibiting its drainage properties. Its major competitor in this field was Speno Rail Services (later owned by Pandrol-Jackson, and still later by Harsco Technologies). Over time, Loram replaced its large work crews with automated machines which can clean ballast 2 to 2.5 feet (0.61 to 0.76 m) in depth.
The company's first mechanical products were the Mannix Sled and Mannix Plow, both developed in the late 1950s. The Mannix Sled was a device towed behind a locomotive which raised the rails and ties and cleared the ballast between the ties (a process known as "skeletonizing"). The Mannix Sled would be followed by a work crew which manually refilled the empty space with clean ballast. The Mannix Plow was a device which lifted both rails and ties, while three blades passed below them and removed all the ballast. This left the ties and rail lying on bare earth; a large work crew followed, lifting the rails again and replacing the ballast. The concept of lifting the rails and ties was counterintuitive, but it revolutionized railbed rehabilitation. In 1959, Loram introduced the Auto-Track. Designed to work behind either a Mannix Plow or a Mannix Sled, this device was capable to detaching a damaged or broken tie from the rail and ejecting it to one side.
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