Melvelle × Contrail Machinery
Flash-butt welding
Contrail mobile rail welding machines — containerised CR65 and CR100 welders and road-rail carriers that weld continuous rail on site, with a fully monitored, traceable weld every time. Supplied, serviced and supported across Australia by Melvelle.
Distributed by Melvelle
The flash-butt welding specialists
Contrail Machinery has designed and built rail flash-butt welding machines since 2010, delivering more than 50 machines into major rail projects worldwide — the Doha and Dubai metros, Riyadh, Abu Dhabi, Egypt and beyond, for operators and contractors including Alstom, Colas Rail and Pandrol.
Every machine is engineered and configured to the project. Melvelle is the Australian partner — bringing Contrail's welding technology to local rail with the supply, commissioning, service, spare parts and operator training to back it.
How it welds
One continuous rail, welded on site
Flash-butt welding fuses two rail ends with no consumable — an electric flash brings the ends to forging heat, then a hydraulic upset forges them into a single rail. Contrail's machines do it mobile, and prove the quality of every joint.
12,000 mm²
Rail cross-section
Welds Vignole and grooved rail from 5,000 up to 12,000 mm², profiles 40–75 kg/m, grades R220 through R350HT head-hardened.
10–12 / sec
Pulse flashing
Rail is heated by physical pulsations, 10–12 per second — low rail consumption, a narrow heat-affected zone and good hardness retention on head-hardened rail.
20 / sec
Every weld logged
Displacement, voltage, current and upset force recorded 20 times a second, with automatic ACCEPT / REJECT against set limits and a PDF report per weld.
EN 14587-2
Certified quality
Fully compliant with EN 14587-2 and AREMA. Weld data is stored on-board and to the cloud for full traceability and remote access.
The range
CR65 and CR100
Two containerised welders on one proven platform. The CR65 is the mid-size machine; the CR100 takes on the heaviest sections and longest strings. Both share the same power, cooling, crane and control system.
| Specification | CR65 | CR100Flagship |
|---|---|---|
| Rail cross-section | 5,000 – 10,000 mm² | 5,000 – 12,000 mm² |
| Rated upsetting force | 650 kN (65 t) | 1,000 kN (100 t) |
| Rated clamping force | 1,500 kN | 2,600 kN |
| Max. secondary current | 48 kA | 67.5 kA |
| Power at DC 50% | 240 kVA | 357 kVA |
| Upset cylinder stroke | 80 mm | 110 mm |
| Welding head weight | 2,900 kg | 3,800 kg |
| Rail length range | 0.8 – 400 m | 1.2 – 1,000 m |
| Crane rotation | 30° each side | 60° each side |
| Container (L×W×H) | 6,075 × 2,500 × 2,400 mm | 7,075 × 2,550 × 2,550 mm |
| Container weight | 15,300 kg | 17,250 kg |
One platform, both machines
- Self-contained power — Volvo-Penta diesel genset with a 550 kVA alternator and 800 L tank
- On-board crane lifts the welding head 5,000 kg at 3.4 m reach; parks it for transport
- 21 kW water cooling rated for continuous work in tropical climates (up to 55 °C)
- Weld Process Control software with SCADA, cloud logging and PDF weld reports
- Grooved and crane-rail welding as standard; internal shear die trims the upset automatically
- Welds in tunnels without removing the live third rail or contact wire — usable 24 hours a day
CR100P adds the CRP160 closure rail puller — up to 140 t of pulling force for closure welds, synchronised with the welding head.
Configurations
Stationary, on a wagon, or self-driving
The containerised welder is built on a shipping-container footprint with corner twist-locks, so it can work as fixed plant, ride a flat wagon, or mount to a road-rail truck — whatever the project needs.
FBW Equipment Kit
The welding head and control system supplied as a kit to integrate into an existing plant or wagon.
FBW Container
A self-contained ISO-footprint container with its own power, cooling and crane — stationary, on a wagon, or on a road-rail truck.
Road-Rail Truck
The container carried on a MAN 8×4 road-rail truck, driving itself between weld sites on road and rail.
FBW Mobile Machine
Purpose-built self-propelled configurations developed to a project's specific requirements.
Road-rail carrier
Drives itself to the weld
The heavy-duty 4-axle road-rail truck carries the welding container on road and rail. Built on a MAN TGS 8×4 with hydrostatic rail drive, it travels at line speed on the road and rails itself on site, inching between weld points under radio remote — no crane, no separate transport.
- Base vehicle
- MAN TGS 8×4, Euro 6
- Rail drive
- Hydrostatic, all four rear-bogie wheels driven
- Road speed
- 90 km/h
- Rail speed
- 25 km/h (5 km/h under remote control)
- Gross vehicle mass
- 41,000 kg
- Track gauge
- 1,435 mm standard
- Standard
- EN 15746 category 9A, CE marked
- Control
- 7-inch touchscreen HMI, radio remote, GPRS telematics
Beyond the weld
The full welding programme
Closure Rail Puller CRP160
A hydraulic puller tensioning rail with up to 1,373 kN (140 t) of force for closure welds, synchronised with the CR100P welding head.
Rail Bending Press RBT326
A 326-tonne weld bend tester, configurable for 3-point (EN) or 4-point (AREMA) testing, for the welding laboratory.
Service, parts & training
Refurbishments and upgrades, genuine spare parts, on-site servicing and operator training — coordinated in Australia through Melvelle.
Contrail machines at work with
See it in action
The CR100 at work
The weld
A full flash-butt weld — flashing, upset and shear — with the live weld-monitoring readout.
The machine
The CR100 containerised machine and its road-rail carrier, inside and out.
Talk to us about flash-butt welding
Tell us the rail profile, the sections and the project, and our Newcastle team will spec the right Contrail machine with you — supply, commissioning, service and training included.