Method and system for tamping under the sleepers of a railway track

Abstract

The invention relates to a method for tamping sleepers (5) of a track (3) using a tamping unit (7) with several pairs of tamping arms (17) arranged side by side, wherein the tamping picks (12) of each pair of tamping arms (17) are immersed in a ballast bed (4) on both sides of a sleeper (5) and aligned relative to each other by means of an adjusting cylinder (18) by applying an adjusting pressure (p). In a track curve, a control unit (20) automatically sets different adjusting pressures (p) for at least two of the adjacent pairs of tamping arms (17) depending on a superelevation (u) of the track (3) or a proportional value thereto. In this way, optimized properties are achieved for the compacted ballast bed (4), so that uneven loads on the track (3) do not cause premature or uneven deterioration of the track geometry.