EMERGENCY HAMMER FOR THE RAILWAY INDUSTRY

Emergency hammers, in particular, help to save lives. That is why they are part of the compulsory equipment in local and long-distance passenger transport – as long as they meet the strict requirements. Among other things, fire protection plays a significant role in passenger transport, especially in rail vehicles.

For this reason, EMKA has developed a new variant of the previous emergency hammer for train use. The construction and design of the product are similar to the earlier model. The head is made of zinc-plated steel with a carbide tip and a plastic handle.

This combination ensures a lighter design. In combination with the ergonomic shape, a high-impact force can be applied. At the same time, the new hammer meets the applicable requirements for the fire behaviour of materials according to the European fire protection standard DIN-EN 45545.

This certification is critical and makes using the hammer in rail vehicles possible in the first place. In order to obtain this classification, EMKA used a special plastic to design the hammer and had it certified by a fire test laboratory.

Special plastic ensures high fire protection
For certification according to the European fire protection standard, the material used must fall below the prescribed limit values in the categories of flammability, smoke gas development and toxicity. The material can be divided into three different classes. HL3 is the highest fire protection class of DIN EN 45545, and the EMKA emergency hammer meets this requirement. The hammer owes this result to a specially developed plastic. This plastic is both flame-retardant and self-extinguishing. The handles catch fire only with great difficulty and extinguish immediately when they no longer come in contact with a flame. Besides the categorisation in DIN EN 45545-2 HL3, the new hammer has also successfully passed the impact test according to the Administrative Regulation for testing emergency entry and exit windows. Meeting these regulations once again proves the performance of the product.

Emergency hammer comes with hand protection as standard
Furthermore, in order to minimise the risk of injury to passengers when using the hammers, the modular system comes with hand protection as a standard. The emergency hammer is supplied as standard with a holder and an integrated anti-theft device; however, it can also be purchased loose, without a holder, for spare parts requirements. In addition, a one-and-a-half-metre steel cable integrated into the mounting serves as an anti-theft device to prevent wilful theft of the emergency hammer. Finally, the emergency hammer can also be given customer branding in a different colour design in exceptional cases.

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