http://www.railpictures.net/viewphoto.php?id=314602&nseq=1 Not my picture. I do know what it is, but I just have never seen one like this before.
Agreed. It’s a Herzog ‘Multi-Purpose Machine’, but that view from overhead and off to one side is a much better angle to show what it really is, than is usually seen - more typically, level with it, and merely from the side. Here’s the link to its website - http://www.herzogcompanies.com/railroad_services_mpm.php
Thanks for pointing this out to us.
- Paul North.
The Herzog Multi-purpose Machine is used for ditching and picking up scrap track supplies from along the right of way. If you look to the far end of the piece of equipment you can discern a ‘back hoe’ type piece of equipment. The ‘back hoe’ moves along the side rails of each of the cars and is able to pick up material from the right of way and load it into the cars that are a part of the equipment. When the equipment is fully loaded it then goes to the proper disposal site to be unloaded.
Appears to be an interesting adaptation of a set of well cars…
I see, so it does maintenance work. Eliminating jobs.
Railroad is and has always been about doing what has to be done in the most efficient and effective way possible at minimum expense.
Herzog is a contractor. They are hired by the carriers to do specific projects. ie. The jobs that Herzog is hired to do have been ‘outsourced’ from the carriers own workforce.
Like it or hate it…it is the way things are done today.
No - not really, and not really.
Other than maybe ditching, it really doesn’t do actual track maintenance work as such. What it mainly does is distribute and pick up materials - everything from new and old ties, waste excavation, and especially new and old tie plates, joint/ splice bars, spikes, scrap rail pieces, etc.
And it can do those tasks more efficiently. Before this came along, it was often either a Burro or other locomotive (=self-propelled) crane with a bucket or magnet to do the loading and unloading. Problem is, after the gondola or flat car that would have been coupled on either end of the crane was either loaded or unloaded - and sometimes it was less than the full length of the car that could be reached with the boom - then it was time to run to the nearest siding to rearrange them or get a new pair of empty or loaded cars to continue the operation. That wasted a lot of time and occupied a lot of main line track to no good purpose or result. With this rig, there’s no lost time reshuffling the cars - the machine mounted on top of the cars just moves to a new car, and the operation keeps on going without interruption or delay, so it can turn the track back over to the Operating Dept. that much sooner. And counting heads, I’d say it’s probably the same number of personnel as the crane-and-cars operation, or maybe 1 more - a train operator, plus the equipment operator when that’s underway, plus the same people on the ground.
Before any of that, it was either hand labor with a front-end loader or a Pettibone Speed Swing, or pitching the stuff by hand into and out of a gondola or flat car. Those methods might have employed a few more people, but - and trust me on this - no one stood in line for any of those jobs afte
If you’ve seen this thing in action or just watch the video, it only uses one crew member only to do everything. But sometimes it does have a local divison foreman along to oversee things. I live in northern Colorado and see this type of Herzog consist regularly.
Also another piece of equipment that looks very strange when you see it for the first time is this. http://www.herzogcompanies.com/railroad_services_cartopper_material_handler.php
I have seen comments from professional railroaders that the Herzog machines and their competitors (Georgetown Rail and LORAM for instance) are an example of “outsourcing” M.O.W jobs in that the Class 1s tend to rent the equipment complete with operators supplied by Herzog and thus employ smaller numbers of M.O.W people directly…That method of delivery was always common in Railgrinding but has spread to other activities…You’ll see the same thing in many industries…
At first it looked to me they were experimenting with small intermodal trains. Think about it get enough businesses to locate next to the track, and have these trains pull right up to the loading dock and unload the containers. Could work here in the east maybe?
You’d have the long distance trains arrive at a cities main intermodal facility and have these little guys take them to businesses in other parts of the city or to near by smaller cities. Coarse you would need enough businesses willing to try it out first.
This is interesting I don’t ever think I’ve heard of Herzog before. Looking at the picture in the first post I really wasn’t to sure what this MOW machine actually did. I have heard of LORAM and have been a foreman on one of the LORAM MOW trains that has been in my yard here in Louisville, KY on the CSX. That job is really easy. All you have to do is throw switches for the MOW and just sit back and watch them work. To tell ya the truth I haven’t seen a MOW train in the yard that didn’t have a conductor on it. Maybe it’s some kind of contract CSX has when they hire the private contractors for the job.
I am surprised that you haven’t come across the Herzog ballast trains that CSX has been operating for the past 3 or 4 years. The Herzog ballast train dumps the ballast in accordance with a previously documented computer program as the train moves between A and B, minimizing track occupancy time. The Herzog ballast train dumps ballast at up to 20 MPH.
The idea of a lightweight,self propelled intermodal train has been kicking around since the 1960’s but no one has really been able to make it work economically. A recent example with some similarity to the Herzog machines was the German built Cargosprinter, which was itself developed from a self propelled M.O.W unit:
