Recycling of ballast and concrete sleepers

For maintenance of the ballast bed, we have set up a materials cycle for ballast, concrete sleepers NO. 73 and tracks. About 3 to 4 million tons of old materials are removed from the network on site annually and just as quickly replaced. In the year under review, about 1.4 million tons of ballast were mechanically removed on site by track-­bound ballast cleaning machines or mobile processing plants and immediately reused. This significantly reduces the amount needed for new ballast, in addition to reducing the associated transport costs and greenhouse gas emissions. For the most part, the rest of the material is processed into Recycled ballast NO. 51 in an external certified disposal facility for DB Group or prepared as gravel or crushed sand for road building. About 2.8 million tons of ballast were used in the year under review, about 0.4 million tons of which were recycled ballast.