GB2551967A

GB2551967A - Welfare unit

Info

Publication number: GB2551967A
Application number: GB1611183.3A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Samsa Javayne; Fletcher Simon; Martin Jose
Original assignee: AJC TRAILERS Ltd
Current assignee: AJC TRAILERS Ltd
Priority date: 2016-06-28
Filing date: 2016-06-28
Publication date: 2018-01-10
Anticipated expiration: 2036-06-28
Also published as: GB201611183D0; GB2551967B

Abstract

Welfare unit 1 comprising a housing 2 defining a self-contained unit mountable on a rail trolley, comprising base 4, roof 5, and four sides. Side 32 has a door 9 for user access. The base defines a compartment 12 below a floor 13 of the welfare unit within which a step unit 10 is stowable and comprises one or more steps 11. The housing may define a single user toilet compartment housing a cassette toilet (3, figure 4). The steps may be co-planar with one another when stowed. Preferably when deployed, a second (lower) step is suspended from one or more slide members (20, figure 3) and/or the first (upper) step by one or more pivoting support members 22. The base may be latched to a platform (14, figure 4) of a rail trolley (15) forming a manually-propelled welfare system. One or more steps may be below the platform level in use. The mobile welfare unit may allow ready relocation along a rail line, reducing time and distance workers walk along the track by foot, especially for toilet breaks. Welfare units may provide basic sanitary and kitchen facilities to site personnel in rail industry.

Description

(54) Title of the Invention: Welfare unit

Abstract Title: A welfare unit comprising a stowable step unit (57) Welfare unit 1 comprising a housing 2 defining a self-contained unit mountable on a rail trolley, comprising base 4, roof 5, and four sides. Side 32 has a door 9 for user access. The base defines a compartment 12 below a floor 13 of the welfare unit within which a step unit 10 is stowable and comprises one or more steps 11. The housing may define a single user toilet compartment housing a cassette toilet (3, figure 4). The steps may be co-planar with one another when stowed. Preferably when deployed, a second (lower) step is suspended from one or more slide members (20, figure 3) and/or the first (upper) step by one or more pivoting support members 22. The base may be latched to a platform (14, figure 4) of a rail trolley (15) forming a manually-propelled welfare system. One or more steps may be below the platform level in use. The mobile welfare unit may allow ready relocation along a rail line, reducing time and distance workers walk along the track by foot, especially for toilet breaks. Welfare units may provide basic sanitary and kitchen facilities to site personnel in rail industry.

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Fig. 2

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Welfare Unit

The present disclosure relates to a welfare unit. In particular to such a unit that is suitable for use in the rail industry and is mountable upon a conventional manually propelled rail trolley.

For conformance with health and safety legislation, virtually all outside work sites have to provide temporary accommodation and/or welfare facilities for site personnel. To this end, welfare units have been provided. Such units are movable enclosures providing temporary accommodation and welfare facilities, such as basic sanitary and kitchen facilities, to site personnel at work locations where no other accommodation or welfare facilities may be provided.

Such welfare units were traditionally provided in the form of steel containers, similar in form to modified shipping containers. More recently lighter weight constructions have been proposed. Whilst these units have provided suitable welfare facilities, they are bulky and require lifting equipment for their relocation.

In the context of workers operating along a rail line there is an issue that the welfare facilities are provided at a fixed track side location. The problem arises that as work proceeds along the rail line, the distance of the workers from the welfare facilities increases. Among a number of problems caused by this distancing of the workers from the welfare facilities is a loss in productivity as workers have to travel along the track by foot to reach the welfare facilities, especially for toilet breaks.

The present invention arose in a bid to provide a highly mobile welfare unit, which allows for ready relocation as required and without the requirement for lifting equipment.

According to the present invention in a first aspect, there is provided a welfare unit comprising: a housing that defines a self-contained unit, which is mountable on a rail trolley and comprises a base, a roof, and four sides, one of which provided with a door for allowing user access to the welfare unit, and a step unit, which comprises one or more steps, wherein the base defines a compartment below a floor of the welfare unit within which the step unit is stowable.

The housing most preferably defines a single user toilet compartment, which houses a toilet.

Further, preferred, features of the welfare unit are presented in the dependent claims.

According to the present invention in a further aspect, there is provided a manually-propelled welfare system comprising a welfare unit as described above and a manually propelled rail trolley, the rail trolley comprising a platform for supporting the welfare unit and a plurality of wheels for engaging the tracks of a rail line.

The welfare unit is selectively mountable on/demountable from the rail trolley.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

Figure 1 shows a perspective front view of a welfare unit according to a first embodiment with the steps in a deployed position;

Figure 2 shows a perspective front view of the welfare unit of Figure 1 with the steps in a stowed position;

Figure 3 shows a perspective view of a step unit of the welfare unit of Figure

1, showing the stowed and deployed positions of the steps;

Figure 4 shows a perspective front view of the welfare unit of Figure 1 mounted on a rail trolley with the step unit in the deployed position and the door open; and

Figure 5 shows a detail perspective view of fixing clips of the welfare unit of

Figure 1.

With reference to the figures, there is shown a welfare unit 1 comprising a housing 2. The housing 2 defines a self-contained unit that is mountable on a rail trolley 4. The welfare unit 1 can, by virtue of its size and lightweight construction (as discussed below) be lifted and relocated manually.

The term rail trolley as used herein is intended to cover any manually propelled, stand-alone load-bearing rolling platform for use on rail tracks. An exemplary trolley in accordance with this definition is the Link Trolley manufactured by Permaquip, which is a so-called “Type A” rail trolley. The arrangement of the welfare unit is such that it may be manually lifted on and off a rail trolley as necessary, wherein a manually-propelled welfare unit comprising the welfare unit io and the rail trolley may readily be placed on, or removed from, a track by workers at a desired starting location and then moved along the track with the workers (using the rail trolley) as work moves along the rail line. Whilst rail trolleys vary in size, it is preferable that the welfare unit may be supported by a rail trolley with a platform having a length of 750mm and a width of 1675mm, such as the Link Trolley mentioned above.

The housing of the welfare unit preferably has a footprint of width no greater than 1 m and length no greater than 2m. In the present arrangement, as shown in the figures, the welfare unit 1 has a maximum width of 810mm, a length of 1200mm and a height of 2300mm (all dimensions excluding the deployed steps). Figure 4 shows the welfare unit 1 mounted on a trolley 15 having a platform 14 of 750mm by 1675mm.

The housing 2 comprises a base 4, a roof 5, and four sides 6, 7, 8, 32. The front face 32 is provided with a lockable door 9 for allowing user access to the welfare unit 1. The door 9 extends along most of the height of the housing 2.

The housing 2 is preferably formed from multiple panels of suitable form. The panels may be plastic, such as polypropylene, or any other suitably rigid and durable material, including metal and wood, composites or laminates. They may be planar or tray like in form in dependence on the precise form of the housing 2. For weight and durability purposes a plastic, lightweight laminate or composite construction is preferred. The panels may be glued or welded together. It is possible, however, that multiple parts/panels of the housing are formed unitarily by rotational moulding, extrusion or otherwise.

The welfare unit 1 preferably comprises a toilet 3. In such case, as shown, the housing defines a single user toilet compartment, housing a single toilet. The toilet may comprise a conventional cassette toilet, or otherwise. There may further be provided any one or more of the following: a hand sanitiser dispenser 16, a mirror 17, an internal LED light with PIR (not shown), an external LED light with PIR (not shown, solar panels 18 provided on the roof 5 for powering the LED lights and any io other electrical devices within or on the welfare unit, and one or more batteries for storing electrical energy from the solar panels 18.

The welfare unit 1 comprises a step unit 10 (seen most clearly in Figure 3), which comprises one or more steps 11. The base 4 defines a compartment 12 below a floor 13 of the welfare unit 1 within which the step unit 10 is stowable. The compartment is open at the front of the housing 2. The steps are deployed through the open front.

The step unit 10 is shown in the stowed position in Figure 2 and is shown in the deployed position in Figures 1 and 4.

By provision of the step unit 10, it is possible to provide safe user access to the welfare unit 1 when it is raised from the ground by its mounting on the rail trolley

15. This way the welfare unit is usable when it sits on the rail trolley 15. The steps, in their deployed position, extend forward of the housing 2 and to a level that is below both the base 4 and the platform 14 of the rail trolley 15.

By provision of the compartment for stowage of the steps, it is possible to store the steps in an unobtrusive manner so that the welfare unit 1 may be placed directly on the ground for use in a conventional freestanding mode separate from the rail trolley 15, so that the steps may not become separated from the welfare unit 1, and so that the steps do not get in the way during storage.

In the present arrangement, the step unit 10 comprises two interconnected steps 11 movable between the stowed position, in which the steps are entirely contained within the compartment 12 (as seen in Figure 2), and a deployed position, in which the steps are provided at least partially outside the compartment (as seen in

Figures 1 and 4). It is preferable that both the top step and the bottom step are substantially entirely outside the compartment in the deployed position. Whilst two steps are shown, which is preferred, it should be understood that alternative arrangements may be provided with a single step only or more than two steps.

io The step unit 10 comprises a pair of fixed members 19, which are mounted within the compartment 12 and a pair of slide members 20 to which the steps 11 are connected. Interconnection of the steps is via the fixed and slide members 19, 20. Movement of the steps between the stowed and deployed positions is achieved by sliding movement of the slide members 20 relative to the fixed members 19. Each of the fixed members 19 is paired with a respective one of the slide members 20 to effectively form a glide/runner. The fixed members may be connected/fixed together as part of a frame or may be separate to one another. In the present arrangement, two cross members 21 are provided, which join the fixed members 19 to one another such that a fixed frame is provided within the compartment 12. The fixed members/frame may be fixed within the compartment using any conventional fixing means, such as bolting or otherwise. The fixed members extend substantially horizontally when the welfare unit 1 is in use, as is clear from the figures.

Whilst the form of the fixed members 19 is not to be limited, and various alternative arrangements will be readily conceived by those skilled in the art, the fixed members 19 in the present arrangement comprise opposed square C-shaped members that extend longitudinally. The fixed members 19, as shown, are co-planar and extend parallel to one another in a front back direction of the housing 2.

Whilst the form of the slide members 20 is not to be limited, and various alternative arrangements will be readily conceived by those skilled in the art, the slide members 20 in the present arrangement comprise square n-shaped members that extend longitudinally and in parallel to one another and to the fixed members 19. The slide members 20 are received by the opposed channels defined by the fixed members 19, as shown, and are slidable in the front back direction therein. Riders may be provided for easing the sliding action of the slide members 20 within the channels of the fixed members 19, suitable riders include, but are not limited to, wheels, or low friction elements. The steps 11 are fixed to the slide members 20, as shown.

The upper (or first) step 11 is attached to an end portion of each of the slide members 20, as shown. The upper step is substantially co-planar/vertically-aligned with the slide members 20 to which it is fixed. The upper step extends between the io slide members 20. Movement of the upper step in the present arrangement is limited to horizontal sliding movement in the front back direction in use.

The lower (or second) step 11 is attached to the slide members 20, as shown. It is mounted via pivoting support members 22, opposed ends of which are pivotally connected to the lower step and to the slide members, respectively. In the present arrangement, there is a pair of support members 22 provided on each side of the lower step, as shown. In alternative arrangements there may be a single support member on each side that is suitably modified. In the present arrangement, the support arms on each side of the step lie parallel to one another at all times. They lie on top of each other within the channels defined by the slide members 20, and parallel to the slide members, when the step unit 10 is retracted. In the deployed state, the lower step is suspended from the movable members 20.

Stop means are preferably provided for defining the limit of sliding movement of the slide members 20 in the front back direction. These may take any suitable form. In the present arrangement, the fixed members are provided with longitudinal slits 28 in the fixed members 19, which are engaged by suitable members (not shown) on the slide members 20.

Whilst the support members 22 are attached at their upper ends to the movable members 20 in the present arrangement, they could alternatively be attached to the upper step 11 itself. Various other pivoting support means will also be readily conceived by those skilled in the art.

Whatever arrangement is implemented, it will be such that the lower step may move both horizontally and vertically in use. In a stowed position, the steps are coplanar/vertically aligned (and preferably closely adjacent) with one another and received entirely within the compartment.

The lower step 11 is preferably provided with a closure member 23 attached to its front, which closes the open front of the compartment 12 when the steps are in the retracted position, as seen in Figure 2. The closure member 23 in the present arrangement is a plate that lies perpendicular to the fixed and slide members 19, 20 io and has a profile that substantially matches the profile of the open front of the compartment. When the steps are retracted, the closure member is preferably substantially co-planar with the front face 32 of the housing 2. Alternative closure members 23 may be implemented. The closure member 23 may be provided with a latch or closure element for maintaining the step unit 10 in the retracted position.

In operation, the steps may be deployed from the stowed position by pulling the closure member 23 or lower step 11 forward. As the support members 22 clear the compartment 12, they will pivot and thereby the bottom step will be lowered. The steps 11 are pulled until the stop means are engaged. For retraction, the steps 11 are pushed back into the compartment. The arrangement may be such that the support members 22 ride over a surface at the open front of the compartment to bring the steps 11 back into vertical alignment with one another, otherwise the bottom step will simply be lifted by a user to bring it into vertical alignment with the upper step.

For suitable engagement of the welfare unit 1 with the rail trolley 15, it is preferable that the welfare unit 1 is provided with fixings. Rail trolleys are typically provided with retaining/lifting hooks 26. There are typically two of these hooks 26 provided on each side of the rail trolley. It is beneficial that the fixings on the welfare unit 1 are compatible with these hooks for ease of attachment.

In the present arrangement, the fixings on the welfare unit 1 comprise catches 25 provided adjacent the base 4. The catches 25 are shown most clearly in Figure

5. The catches 25 comprise over centre catches, which comprise claws 27 that project to below the level of the base 4 in use. Two of the catches 25 are provided on each of opposed sides 6, 8 of the housing for engagement with respective hooks 26 on the rail trolley. The catches 25 may take any suitable conventional form. In the present arrangement, the catches 25 each comprise a base plate 29 that is fixed to the housing 2 using suitable fixing means and comprises a pair of hinge plates 30 that pivotally receive a handle 31 that is pivotally connected to the claw 27.

In the present arrangement, the base 24 is provided with opposed recesses 24, which provide substantially vertical planar attachment surfaces for the latches. It io should be noted that in the present arrangement, these recesses are spaced from one another by around 750mm such that the latch attachment surfaces are substantially aligned with the edges of the rail trolley platform 14.

By the mounting of the welfare unit on a rail trolley, there is provided a manually-propelled welfare system.

Since the welfare unit 1 is of lightweight construction, the welfare unit may be readily de-mounted from the trolley and manually carried to the side of the track or otherwise moved. To allow the welfare unit to be manually carried suitable handles

26 are provided on opposed sides 6, 8 of the housing 2. As will be appreciated, numerous alternative handle or carrying arrangements may be integrated into the welfare unit.

In use the rail trolley 15 may be manually lifted onto the track before the welfare unit 1 is lifted onto the platform 14 thereof. The manually-propelled welfare system thus formed may be moved along the track with workers so that it is available for use at the location of the workers. By virtue of the steps, access may be gained to the welfare unit 1 whilst it remains on the rail trolley 15. When the track is to be cleared, the steps 11 may be stowed before the welfare unit 1 is manually lifted from the rail trolley 15 and placed at the side of the track. The rail trolley may then be manually lifted and placed at the side of the track.

Claims

Claims

1. A welfare unit comprising:

a housing that defines a self-contained unit, which is mountable on a rail

5 trolley and comprises a base, a roof, and four sides, one of which is provided with a door for allowing user access to the welfare unit, and a step unit, which comprises one or more steps, wherein the base defines a compartment below a floor of the welfare unit within which the step unit is stowable.

io
2. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 1, wherein the housing has a footprint of length no greater than 1,5m and width no greater than 1 m.
3. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 1 or 2, wherein the welfare unit has a

15 height of no greater than 2.5m.
4. A welfare unit as claimed in any of Claims 1 to 3, wherein the housing defines a single user toilet compartment, which houses a toilet.

20 5. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 4, wherein the toilet comprises a cassette toilet.

6. A welfare unit as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the step unit comprises two or more interconnected steps movable between a stowed position, in

25 which the steps are entirely contained within the compartment, and a deployed position, in which the steps are provided at least partially outside the compartment.

7. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 6, wherein the step unit comprises one or more fixed members within the compartment and one or more slide members to

30 which the steps are connected, wherein the steps are movable between the stowed and deployed positions by sliding movement of the one or more slide members relative to the one or more fixed members.

8. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 6 or 7, wherein in a stowed position, the steps are substantially co-planar with one another.

9. A welfare unit as claimed in any of Claims 6 to 8, wherein in use, in a
5 deployed state, a first of the steps is vertically aligned with the fixed members and a second of the steps is suspended from the one or more slide members and/or the first step.
10. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 9, wherein the second step is suspended io by one or more pivoting support members.
11. A welfare unit as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the base is provided with one or more catches.

15
12. A welfare unit as claimed in Claim 11, wherein the catches comprise over centre catches having claws that project to below the level of the base in use.
13. A welfare unit as claimed on Claim 11, wherein the catches are provided on opposed sides of the housing.
14. A manually-propelled welfare system comprising a welfare unit as described in any preceding claim and a rail trolley, the rail trolley comprising a platform for supporting the welfare unit and a plurality of wheels for engaging the tracks of a rail line.
15. A manually-propelled welfare system as claimed in Claim 13, when dependent on any of Claims 6 to 11, wherein, in the deployed position, at least one of the steps is below the level of the rail trolley platform in use.

30
16. A manually-propelled welfare system as claimed in Claim 13 or 14, when dependent on any of Claims 11 to 13, wherein the rail trolley comprises one or more latch elements for engagement with the one or more latches.
17. A manually-propelled welfare system as claimed in Claim 16, wherein the latch elements comprise retaining/lifting hooks.
18. A welfare unit as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying 5 figures.
19. A manually-propelled welfare system as hereinbefore described with reference to the accompanying figures.

Intellectual

Property

Office

GB1611183.3

1-19

Application No: Claims searched: