Friday I had to make a delivery out to The FMC Plant near Granger Wy. and in front of the maintence shop I found this…
I know its used for switching cars, but I have never seen one like this before. Just thought I would share
it with you all.
On my way back from the plant I caught a train coming up out of the OCI plant with a string of covered hoppers, and what should I find on the point, a CNW unit…sadly, patched, followed by an unpatched SP unit, and a UP unit, all Dash 9s. Missed the picture due to having to drive a large truck down a rough road and I couldn’t spare a hand to snap the pic with the cell phone…
Also, they have almost finished the new overpass in downtown Rock Springs, and I knew they would do it, but just hoped they wouldn’t. They went and ruined a great railfanning spot by putting up bliunders on the sides of the bridge. One side of the street has a 10 foot sidewalk, theother has an 8 foot sidewalk. Plenty of room to set up tripods and things.
My thought is that that thing is a “Shuttle Wagon”, a Trackmobile competitor.
They were (are?) road mobile. Your could drive on a road to the cars you wanted to move, put it on the rail, and slowly move the railcars where you needed them. Then take it off the rail and go elsewhere.
If you go to the Shuttlewagon site and hit “specialty products” they show a “single man cab” that looks pretty much like the unit in the photo.
The major difference between Shuttlewagon and Trackmobile is that the Shuttlewagon is effectively a road vehicle with auxiliary rail wheels and the Trackmobile is a rail vehicle with auxiliary road wheels.
You can buy a trackmobile without road capability (rail only) Shuttle wagon uses the road wheels to dive on rail and can’t provide that option (not that I know why anyone would want one of these without road capability.)
