I have not seen one of these before so I took some pics. Its to new for me but it would be cool to model.
Have a nice day Frank
That’s different! I’ve been out of the loop with the real railroads for years. Are the railroads getting contractors with their own small trains to follow track gangs for cleanup??? Would be very interesting to model.
Georgetown Railroad Equipment has something close, but the cars look more like an articulated gondola. Railroads can lease the equipment or they will do the work for you. I’ve seen it on the CN a few times. It can be pulled by a special powered car from Georgetown, or any loco.
http://www.georgetownrail.com/materialHandling/slot_machine.php
They call it a “Slot machine”.
Seeing it one day on the CN, I hurried home, dug out a couple of old 40’ers, modified a C15 backhoe, and made this:
Mike.
I also seen this on the CN last fall, distributing ties. This unit, called the OTM Tracker, rides on this special roadrailer/truck. The truck couples up to the string of gondolas loaded with ties, and this machine picks itself off the truck, and mounts to the tops of the gondolas. It uses the track that is right under the John Deere unit, and it pulls itself along the cars, unloading ties. The unit I seen was 8 cars long. The operator used a remote control, while on the ground next to the machine, and moved the track/John Deere off the truck, and onto the gondolas.
Mike.
Another example of a tie unloader on top of a gondola:
http://canadianfreightcargallery.ca/cgi-bin/image.pl?i=cp418637&o=cprail
There was a build article on this unit in N Scale Railroading several years back.If Im remember correctly the trains were built by Herzog (SP) and the power units range from GP-7s right up to GP38-2s.These are one person operated units.
I saw an N scale model of one of these on an N scale forum a couple days ago, I’m not sure which one. One of my friends made me a member of three different N scale groups on facebook without asking me, and I can’t keep up with what is what.
Hello I am not up to date on the real railroads eather .But this line runs past my shop now and then I will see somthing different and try to get a pic.
Mike nice job I like your setup much better the real one is cool also good shot.
Have a nice day Frank
You could try scratch building this, the cars are similar to well cars, install rails on the sides for the excavator, replace the tracks on te excavator with wheel sets modified to the correct guage of the rails on the cars. Could use any old locomotive for the front, and maybe get a safety cab (or a cheap shell and cut the cab off) off eBay and attach it to a flat car for the other end.
Search youtube for ‘excavator on rail cars’ or similar phrases and you can see quite a few construction things crawling onto, into and over railroad cars. I used some scraps to make a portable ramp for crawler vehicles based on a video I found there.