New Tata Steel site to produce longer ‘super-hardened’ rail

Tata Steel has cut the ribbon on a new €12 million heat-treatment facility in France which will be used in the production of new harder-wearing 108-metre rail.

The site, which uses an induction furnace to heat the rails to 950 degrees Celsius before cooling them quickly with compressed air, will more than double the output of heat-treated rail from Tata’s Hayange steel mill in the French region of Lorraine and allow the company to manufacture longer lengths of ‘super-hardened’ rail for the first time.

Hayange first began producing 108-metre rail in 2011 and will look to install its new heat-treated rails in places like Germany, Switzerland and Scandinavia – countries with winding mountainous routes and lines with high axle loads that need harder-wearing track.


Inside the new €12 million heat-treatment facility at Hayange


David Petitjean, manager of the Hayange facility, said: “We have built this plant in response to demand from valued customers, but while our heat treatment process is tried and tested, we have continued to innovate to ensure the new plant will be more energy efficient and will allow us to deliver rail to customers exactly when required.

“Tata Steel has invested almost €50 million in this facility over the last four years, helping to create a sustainable future for the 400 people who work here.”

The new facility will produce around 70,000 tonnes of the longer heat treated-rails each year, more than doubling the current annual output of treated rail to 125,000 tonnes.

Tata’s Scunthorpe and Hayange sites churn out a combined 600,000 tonnes of rail every year, with around £130 million having been invested in Scunthorpe since 2006 to allow the mill to manufacture 216-metre rail lengths.

The steel blooms used in rail production at Hayange are actually from Scunthorpe – transported from the north of England to Lorraine through the Channel Tunnel.

In October, Network Rail signed a five-year deal with Tata which will see Scunthorpe supply around 140,000 tonnes of rail annually for the UK network. Although Scunthorpe will produce all the rails under the new framework contract, Hayange has supplied Network Rail in past.




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