…A work train on NS {New Castle Div.}, just north of Muncie was picking up ties along the ROW with an excavator positioned up on the side rails of a gondola car of that work train and something happened to cause it to overturn and fall off to the ground. Actually fell over on a passing track. The operator was treated for a minor head injury.
For those who care to take a look, bring up the www.starpress.com and possibly a photo might be available to view. It’s in our morning paper.
Lucky Loaders is what those are called there buddy. They are some pretty fun work trains.
I could not get to a photo, but if that is what I think it was, I have seen the practice and its variations before. For industries (both construction and railroad) that stress safety, this high wire act performed with excavators seems oddly out of character.
…Yes, Bucyrus…I just checked the internet and local papers and found they did not include that photo that is in our morning paper.
The photo shows a {telephoto}, view and it apears there are 3 special condola’s and an engine…{Can’t see from the photo angle if it is the Herzog Co. equipment}…This excavator {back hoe type equipment}, is laying on it’s side and on the passing track. I’d say the operator got a rather bad shock falling down to the ROW with his equipment.
Probably 10 years ago Trains Magazine had a photo essay on how the equipment got placed on the gondola car. Not sure I would want to do that.
ed
…I remember seeing that feature showing that. It appeared one would want {have to be}, a very experienced equipment opreator at the very least. It showed the sequences necessary to “walk” the machine up on those special gondola’s.
…UPRR engineer:
I was simply following using the same name as the local press did so it would help anyone looking for it in the paper on line.
I realize there are different names used for those machines.
Here is an example what people do with backhoes:
http://www.trapshooters.com/cfpages/thread.cfm?threadid=151925&Messages=8
…I would think that process takes a gutsy operator. Saw them operate here in west Muncie several years ago as they{Herzog}, were doing some track work on the Frankfort line {NS}.
As for the one that fell off the gondola “rails” here yesterday…It was not the tractor high lift, backhoe type…it was like a smaller size “shovel” with tracks…vehicle, with cab and an attachment {in place of the backhoe bucket}, to wrap around the ties like a machine to pick up logs…
http://www.krunk.org/~joeshaw/pics/ns/co-cars/gondola-crawling-crane-1.jpg
Theres a link to a picture of a (un)lucky loader incase some ones never saw one. The ones we have look a little different i think, more like a burro crane.
Is THIS the story you are talking about? (picture)
wow
I thought cats landed on their feet… just glad no one was seriously hurt.
stay safe
joe
What I posted was a tractor-loader-backhoe (TLB), and the machine in the accident is called a trackhoe, or excavator. That particular excavator appears to be equipped with rubber tracks. If I am not mistaken, from what I have seen in other photos of this kind of work, they run the excavator’s tracks right on top of the side walls of the gondola or hopper car. Rubber track undercarriages often have narrow bottom rollers running on the middle of the track as opposed to steel track undercarriages with double wheel bottom rollers running on the two-rail roller chain of steel tracks. I wonder if the configuration of the rubber track undercarriage played a part in this falling off incident considering that the tracks are running on thin blades of the gon walls. Maybe this was a learing experience in this zero tolerance work.
…Bingo…I knew you could find it. I actually looked thru the Muncie area internet papers and gave up that they didn’t put it in…Thanks for showing it.
…I’ve seen the outfit {Herzog}, work a few years ago in the area but as I remember they {their machines}, were held in place {up on the rail}, with brackets that extended down over the sides of the rail at front and back. Movement was done with the bucket up front and the rig at the rear. This one, of course was different with the “tracks” as running gear…Can’t imagine they could expect forces from the work being done by the machine wouldn’t tend to move the unit off center of the rail and have happen what did happen here in the Muncie incident.
there is no special equipment these are standard gons and that trac hoe just rides on top of the ties as they drop them off . the machien stays quite steady and does not have a problem usually. work trains are fun and they can make you lots of money.
…Believe this rig was picking up used ties that had been replaced. I was up by that area just a couple of weeks ago and saw stacks of them along the ROW then.
they can do both jobs set outs and pick ups.
When the center of gravity of the machine shifts beyond the side of the gon due to an excessive load on its extended boom the darn thing is gonna tip over. Thats the reason they use outriggers on mobile cranes. Pretty basic concept that any equipment operator worth his salt should be aware of. Of course the center of gravity could also shift beyond the tipping point if the tracks of the machine run off the side of the gons top rails. Whichever was the case chalk this one up to operator error.
Mark
…Now I’m wondering…Was the machine down “inside” the gondola…or up on the “rails” of it…? If it was up on the rails of it, and no other means of fastening it to the rails except the “tracks” sitting on them…how could they possibly expect it to stay there and actually do the work it was supposedly doing…reaching out and picking up a quanity of used ties…?