Road-rail excavator
An excavator that travels on the railway as well as on the road.
The tool is the simple part of it:
it is access to the track that governs everything else.
Other names for this machine: road-rail excavator, road-rail machine, on-track excavator.
- Category
- CACES R.482A category B3 (road-rail extraction machines)
- Status
- Direct carrier of attachments
What it does
everything it does is governed by access to the track — the tool is the simple part.
it is the rail axles that carry the machine, not the tyres.
Synthetic image.
it is the time taken to get on track that makes its value.
Synthetic image.
An excavator equipped to travel on the railway as well as on the road.
It works the track, the surroundings, the vegetation and the services along the ballast.
What it does not do. Everything it does is governed by access to the track and by the rules of the infrastructure manager.
The tool is the simple part.
What governs the fitting of an attachment
-
The class of the machine
It is what bounds the permissible weight and volume of the tool.
A tool that is too heavy is not merely ineffective:
it makes the machine unstable and tires the arm. -
The coupler system
Direct mounting, mechanical, hydraulic or automatic quick coupler, and the type of the coupler itself.
It is the first thing to identify, and the one people get wrong most often. -
The flow of the auxiliary line
Expressed in litres per minute.
A hydraulic tool fed below its flow works badly; fed above it, it overheats and wears out. -
The pressure available
In bar.
The flow makes the speed, the pressure makes the force.
Both are checked, never one without the other. -
The free return to tank
Some tools, hammers and mulchers first among them, require it.
Its absence does not show on a sales sheet and is discovered when fitting. -
The lifting capacity at the working reach
It has nothing to do with the weight of the machine.
It is read on the manufacturer's load chart, at the real reach and height of the work.
One model, as a reference point
The values below hold for this model only.
They are there to give an order of magnitude to anyone who has none, not to serve as a reference.
- Operating weight
- 20,400 to 23,400 kg depending on the configuration
- ISO 9249 power
- 120 kW, that is 163 hp
- Pumps
- two variable displacement pumps of 220 l/min each
- Backacter bucket
- 0,24 à 0,95 m³
- Grapple
- 0,10 à 0,70 m³
Caveat. The running gear exists in several versions, with different track gauges and rail wheels.
What can be fitted on the machine also depends on the infrastructure manager, not only on the manufacturer.
Source. Product page of the manufacturer Liebherr,
recorded on 1 September 2026.
These values are those of one precise model, at one precise date. They do not describe a category:
there are no characteristics of a compact loader in general, there are those of the model you have.
They change from one year to the next and never replace the data sheet of your machine.
Have your machine checked.
Give us the exact model and the work you have in mind.
We check
the coupler, the flow, the pressure and the capacity on your machine,
and we tell you what fits on it — and what does not.
Written study within 3 working days, complete file.
Tell us about your machine Written study within 3 working days, complete file · no obligation