Complete Composite Systems (CCS)
Complete Composite Systems (CCS)
This article first appeared in the Railway-News Magazine Issue 3 2023.
CCS is proud to introduce its lightweight, impact-absorbent ‘composite ballast boards’ – ideal for protecting railway lines and trackside facilities on embankments from the likes of rockfall or snowslide. Traditional concrete ballast boards are often very heavy and laborious to install, particularly over long lines of track. After more than a year of development and testing, our glass-fibre reinforced polyester (GRP) version is lighter with an interlocking design – making the boards quicker and cheaper to fit.
These composite ballast boards are also more sustainable. Manufactured by pultrusion from specially selected unsaturated polyester resins and strengthened with resolute glass-fibre reinforcement packs, the sturdy design ensures the boards will remain damage-free during transit and won’t crack when installed or while under load.
The GRP-pultruded profile is coated with a polyester veil to provide protection from corrosion, UV rays and water, proven over decades of use in marine Composite ballast boards from CCS being installed on site 110 and corrosive environments. This gives the product a lifespan of at least 50 years, with no maintenance required.
Composites are extremely impact-absorbent, while the open-cell tongue-and-groove design of the boards allows interlocking panels to be stacked on top of each another. Our 300mm-deep panels, for instance, can be stacked up to three high to build a robust 900mm-high retaining wall capable of withstanding a range of heavy forces.
