Romapac Tramway Construction Co
of 2, East Parade, Leeds. Works: 35 Kirkstall Road, Leeds.
1906 Description of the company's machinery for attaching a wearing head to
ordinary girder section rail, for use by trams. 'The
girder rail, together with the grooved renewable cap-piece, is shown in section in Fig. 5. The dotted lines
show the position of the flanges on the underside of
the cap, before the latter has been fixed to the permanent rail.
The object of the machine, to which
we have referred, is not only to close up the flanges
the head of the rail, but also when the cap has to be
removed, owing to wear, to cut a groove in one of the
flanges, and then to break it off and remove the cap
from the girder below'. These three distinct operations
are performed by means of what are called a rolling-on machine, a cutting-machine, and a breaking-off
machine, all of which are fitted to a travelling
carriage or bogie, and are worked through gearing from
a steam-engine, which is clearly shown in our general
views. The whole apparatus is self-contained, and is
very strongly built. The head of the permanent girder
rail has some parallel grooves cut on each side, the
grooves running in the direction of the length of the
rail. The two projecting flanges of the cap-piece
also have grooves or serrations on their inside surfaces ; but these grooves are placed vertically, and
are therefore at right angles to the grooves in the
head of the rail below, when the cap is in position.
The object of the grooves is to form a better bond
between the cap and the rail-head when the former is
fixed to the latter. The grooves are not shown in our
engraving. ...'[1]
'The inventor and designer of the machine is Mr. Edgar Rhodes, of the “Romapac” Tramway Construction Company, Limited.'[2]