I saw some strange equipment when out walking today. I was crossing over a section of track depressed in a trench and was looking at what appeared to be new concrete ties and new welded rail which were very recently instaled. Coming toward me I saw some kind of track car. As it passed I saw that it was medium size and seemed to have a control cab in front, something similar at the back and an open area like a flat car bed in between. I could not see that it was actually doing something–just going slowly down the track.
About a block behind was a smaller vehicle, not very big at all, with a blade which was scraping ballast up and over the ends of the ties, burying them out of sight. I didn’t know it was normal to bury the tops of ties in the ballast. I thought the tie top and ballast were even with one another.
After this scraper came a very strange looking vehicle–it might almost be called a “thingy.” I tried to copy and paste into this a rough drawing of what it looked like but couldn’t make the paste work. This vehicle looked like two human sized boxes like control cabs on wheels, joined to each other by a long tube. At equal intervals on the tube were two axles each with small flanged wheels that seemed to ride on the track. I couldn’t see that it was doing anything–just rolling along looking strange. Maybe checking track guage? Somehow I don’t think so but can’t guess anything better.
All of this was followed at an interval by a little rail car (speeder?) pushing what seemed to be a small trailer such as one can rent for moving. The trailer seemed to contain nothing but rubbish. Could a crew have been picking up trash and debris along the track from the recent maintenance activity?
All of this was quite interesting but also puzzling, to me at least. Can anyone tell me what I was watching?
(1) Plasser production tamper (possibly a stoneblower) or Roadmaster 2000
(2) Ballast Regulator
(3) not sure
(4) anchor squeezer w/ trailer
Hmmm… passel of Plasser gear parked here in Tehachapi today. Seems that there is a reason that the track seems very well tended in this area lately. Traffic back to normal daytime from three weeks ago and the used ribbon has been picked up on the stretch east of Mojave.
Thank you mudchicken for your reply. Now I know just what it was I saw but am not sure what it was doing. I understand the Plasser tamper but what would a Roadmaster be–other than an old four hole Buick. I can understand what the other items named are and what they do, at least in general. I am however, still curious about the third item which mudchicken did not identify. This was what I can only describge as 2 human size boxes on railroad wheels joined together by a long pipe that has side axles with small flanged wheels. This was such a weird looking thing that I couldn’t even guess at its identity but I am very curious. Can anyone offer any suggestions?
sounds like the first veh.was a plasser (mgf) tamper/aligmt machine and the 2nd veh was a balast regulator(tamper mgf) …
I disagree on the tamper / stoneblower, they’ve not got “an open area like a flat car bed” as that’s where the engine and tamping heads are. Could be a dynamic track stabiliser (they sort of look as described). The best way to tell is that when operating, a tamper / stomeblower moves a bit and stops a bit etc. (Unless it’s one of them new fangled 09-3x continuous tampers of course).
The third thingy chould be to check track level and alignment or something used to carry a load but it’s empty (if that makes any sense).
Why not have a look on the Plasser website and see if anything matches…
Thanks Nanaimo 73. The picture is similar to what I saw but no cigar. If you replace the large machinery at the rear with a one man control cab, if you replace the trussed beam down the middle with a heavy round rod or pipe, and if you put another one man cab on the front you will have pretty much what I saw. In the picture the small flanged wheels riding the track are like my machine though on mine the wheels and their axles were placed more nearly at 1/3 points along the center beam rather than in the middle of it. While I don’t understand how such a machine would work I begin to suspect that it could relate to checking track level or alignment.
Mr. Jampton–I looked at the Plasser web site and found it interesting. However everything I saw illustrated was very much bigger than what I saw. Comparing the Plasser pictures with what I saw is like comparing a garden tractor with a full sized farm tractor or even a large combine. The equipment that I saw was much more “human sized.” This equipment was moving continuously, albeit slowly, down the track. This makes me wonder about the suggestions of ballast tamper or anchor squeezer for some of what I saw as I would expect that both would be repeatedly stopping and starting again as they worked. Of course perhaps what I was was not really working but merely in transit from point A to point B. If so the tamper and squeezer designations could be correct. I do think that we have nailed the ballast regulator designation and that was indeed what I was watching.
I thank everyone who replied for their help.
I looked at the Plasser sight too…They make some COOOOOL machines Man ! I worked for the RR years ago but we didnt have N E thing like ! Chk out the Tamper web site,they build smaller equipt…Good Hunting…Danny PS You might find it under Kershaw as well,as they build a lot of tamping equipt…