I live in Knoxville, IA and through town there is a BNSF Branchline. From my house I can here the trains as they go through town as I am about 10 blocks from the tracks. Today it sounded as if there was a train stopped and just idleing there. I was obviously curious about what is might be, and then my stepfather stopped by and told me that I should go check it out because there was something blocking one of the crossings and it was huge.
I went there and huge is a very good word for it. It is probably 10-15 cars long in blackand yellow paint and very interesting looking. I took several pictures just haven’t got them put on the computer yet, but if anybody is interested to see what it looks like I will get them put on and posted.
I spoke with several of the guys that works on the crew and found out a lot about what they were doing and why. What they do is grind the rails and basically round the tops which will extend the life of the rails. From what one of they guys told me this is the first time these rails have had this treatment.
Quite a cool thing to see. One last thing to note is that it is a 16 Million dollar machine.
So has anybody seen one of these machines. If you have, I doubt you would forget it. I think that is would be quite hard to model though, which is too bad.
I actually think I’ve seen some brass rail-grinders in HO if you’re interested in getting one. Although, I’m sure it’ll make the wallet quite a bit lighter.
I saw one working along hiway one in Canada a couple years back. At first I thought the prairie was on fire. A train with these huge cars following and a lot of smoke going on. On the last car of the train was a guy with a firehose soaking everything down. I too stopped and asked a crew working on a grade crossing to get an explanation of what was going on.
I saw operate in the late evening once, that was really an awesome experience. Was coming home from a cello lesson when I saw something coming up the tracks, and then I saw all the sparks. It was dry and there were quite a few fires along the ROW. one was beyond the range of most of the hoses, and another railfan and I got an aluminun sheet that was lying around, and did our best to put it out before the hi-railer with long hoses came along. My mum went ot get a camera, but unfortunately it was gone by the time she got back…
The smallest “rail grinder” I have seen was a man with a hand tool grinding out a rough spot on a crossing (tracks not road) in Colton CA.
I have seen Loram trains several times.
The strangest was a “home built” train the Southern Pacific had. The motive power and cars had been built in the SP shops and looked like nothing I have ever seen on the rails before or since.
I sure have seen a rail grinder. Loram RG311. I talked with her crew, and got a tour of her cab. Quite an impressive machine. I’d love to work on one. Maybe when I’m 18, I’ll try for a job, using this business card the crew chief gave me…[^]
Hi, I´m Tom from Germany, and I fondly remember the grinding trains of former times, drawn by two steam engines, decapods preferably, one engine fore and aft, pulling and pushing the train over the rails, going slowly with regulator wide open, a sound hard be forgot! But, these scenes were very seldom recorded on film.- Modern rail-grinding units nowadays are common throughout our European rail systems, having to keep rails, high-speed rails in special, in perfect shape. Still spectacular, but not comparable to the sound of steam powered grinders before!
I have seen three railgrinders over the years. The abrasive discs that actually grind the rails wear out rather quickly and are sometimes seen trackside. The ground metal forms unusual rusty slag that is also seen.
At grade crossings they can lift the abrasive discs so that the crossing itself it not damaged.
A rail grinder at night is fascinating to see as it look like the entire underside of the car is aflame. But even in broad daylight, to see a working grinder move away from you and see it enveloped in soot and dust makes for a great photo too.
Trains magazine ran a cover story about railgrinders about 7 or 8 years ago.
Dave Nelson
We’ve got one from your side of the pond working on the main network over here and it’s very impressive in action. Looks like the sun coming down the track at night and sounds like a giant vacuum cleaner. The sparks and smoke are impressive too they set off all the fire alarms at the station where I’m based when the air con sucked in the smoke! We only run it at night due to it’s slow speed in operation and locals hate it.
