Heavy-Duty Travelling Platforms

When heavy loads need to be moved not just along a single line, but across multiple parallel tracks or processing zones, traditional solutions involving curves and switches quickly reach their limits: They take up space, are complex to implement, and are prone to wear and tear. Heavy-duty travelling platforms and cross-transfer cars solve this problem differently—they pick up the load and move it across the conveying direction to the required track or area.

This makes them cost-effective wherever available track space is limited and loads must be flexibly distributed among multiple lines. Vollert designs transfer tables to meet the specific load capacities, geometries, and process requirements of each application — from a single transfer axis to a controlled cross-transport unit integrated into the material flow.

Where Travelling Platforms Are Used

Heavy-duty travelling platforms are a versatile solution. Vollert designs them for a variety of load configurations and process environments — from heavy industry to specialized applications with high individual loads.

RAILCAR AND RAIL VEHICLES

In manufacturing and maintenance environments for rail vehicles, travelling platforms enable the movement of entire railcars or bogies between parallel tracks without the need for complex track layouts with switches.

LARGE COMPONENTS AND COILS

Large components from the machine and heavy machinery manufacturing sectors, as well as coils from the steel and aluminum industries, are reliably distributed via travelling platforms between machining, buffer, and shipping areas—with precise positioning at the transfer points.

Why Cross-Transport Offers Advantages

In many heavy-duty environments, floor space is the scarcest resource. Curved tracks and switches that would allow for lateral transport require generous radii and thus take up space that is rarely available in densely packed production halls. Travelling platforms move the load laterally along the shortest possible path — thereby replacing space-consuming route layouts with a compact, defined movement.

This not only reduces the space required but also simplifies the system’s complexity: a shorter travel distance, clearly defined transfer positions, and a robust, low-maintenance motion principle. Especially when loads need to be distributed among several parallel lines or processing zones, the travelling platform is the most direct solution.

Design and integration

A sliding platform is more than just a mobile platform. The key factors are the dynamic forces involved in starting and braking the transverse movement, the positioning accuracy at the target positions, and the smooth transfer to the subsequent conveyor lines or tracks.

Vollert designs the drive, guidance, and support structure to withstand the actual operating loads and integrates the sliding platform into the surrounding material flow via a coordinated control concept. Transfers to roller conveyors, chain conveyors, cranes, or tracks are synchronized in such a way that no misalignment or uncontrolled load movement occurs. In brownfield projects, existing hall structures, floor loads, and interfaces with existing control systems are taken into account from the very beginning.