LINK 500 is a rail track layer which makes constructing railway tracks easier, safer and faster in emerging economies like India. It lays prefabricated concrete slabs cyclically along a GPS mapped route. It takes the heavy work and human error away from railway construction. Instead the workers focus on rough and light work, whereas the machine focuses on linking together in a crane like manner - 500 meters of higher quality track per workday.

The Indian railway network has grown 10-fold in the last 50 years, but rail track length has only increased 1.4 times & construction methods have hardly changed. The aim was to design the future of railway-track construction in developing countries. One of the key findings during the field research was that manual system of construction was continuing because of requirement of less capital for contractor and simplicity of operation, in spite of bad quality. So the goal was to find an more suitable solution that would work in the developing world scenario.

The intent of this future concept was to try to match the real present day needs of the emerging economy context with developments in railway track construction around the world. In essence, proposing to bring a future track laying product as the next step in the evolution of track laying in countries like India. After the research phase it became obvious that safety of the workers as well as the efficiency of construction needed improvement. Even though the solution is a product design, it is based upon a complete system design which supports and makes the idea work e.g. Logistics like setting up of the pre-fabricating plant etc.

It was crucial to observe the process of railway track laying in India to be able to understand and extract key insights specific for the emerging-economy context. To do this, a field study in two construction sites in India was done. Interviews were conducted on site with site managers, and workers to get insights on their workflows. Experts from the Indian Railways Institute of Civil Engineering (IRICEN) were consulted to validate these insights and observations.

The research phase was concluded with the identification of quality, consistency issues of track laying and worker safety as the core problems of track construction in India . The opportunity direction chosen was to design a machine to assist linking the tracks and embedding the research insights in the design.

Link 500 is unique in the sense as it fits to the developing world context and utilizes the manual labor available but takes away the safety and quality concerns. It increases the consistency of track as it accurately places the prefabricated concrete slabs. Higher efficiency of approximately 500 meters of track laying per day is also achieved. Safety concerns are minimized due to the GPS/laser guided route ensuring track geometry and reduces operator workload.

The structure of the machine allows it to pass over a material-carrying train thus saving time in transferring concrete slabs onto the track formation. A compact wheelbase it allows LINK 500 to be versatile and carry the prefabricated slabs with stability and good weight distribution. It is easy to transport and can be dis- assembled and fitted and transported in a standard ISO shipping container. Fitted with air-filled tires eliminate a step of laying temporary track in the logistics of railway track construction, saving huge costs. The roll-over-protection-structure cabin provides good visibility to focus points and also has a remote operation unit for operating at a distance if required.

It simplifies and optimizes railway construction making it suitable for developing economy context. Being an intermediate between autonomous machines in developed economies and existing manual methods it offers a better alternative to the poor construction practices, while being more cost effective and improving the overall railtrack quality.