Prefabricados Delta has won the contract to supply and transport sleepers for the Murcia-Almería high-speed rail line, on the Lorca-Vera-Almería section. The contract is worth over 12 million euros and involves the supply of more than 86,000 monoblock concrete sleepers. 

The sleeper to be supplied is a new design called the INTERNATIONAL AE-VE wide monoblock sleeper. This type of sleeper is called an aerodynamic sleeper, which, thanks to its geometric shape, prevents the phenomenon of ballast lift, as it modifies the speed field over the ballast in the area between sleepers and reduces the ballast on them.

This type of sleeper reduces the aerodynamic load in the space above the ballast bed, allowing an increase in train speed. Furthermore, the aerodynamics caused at 330 km/h by the current sleeper is equivalent to that caused by the aerodynamic sleeper at 370 km/h.

This new design will increase the speed of high-speed lines and thus reduce the impact of ballast on the underside of trains.