An apparatus for tensioning or longitudinally sliding a rail of a laid track to reduce a gap between adjacent ends of longitudinally successive rail sections to be welded together to form the rail, the fastening elements of the longitudinally successive rail sections having been loosened, which comprises a closed, ring-shaped mechanical structural unit including two longitudinally spaced pairs of rail clamping jaws and two transversely spaced hydraulic cylinder-piston devices connecting the pairs of rail clamping jaws and operating the same. These pairs of rail clamping jaws are spaced longitudinally and the cylinder-piston devices are spaced transversely to define a sufficient central space in the ring-shaped mechanical structural unit for receiving a flash-butt welding head.
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