A friend sent me this link to a YouTube video showing some prototype tracklaying in progress. Enjoy.
thanks for a most interesting video. i like the little clips that fasten the rail to the ties.
i remember watching a PC work train spreading ballast from conventional hopper cars. they used a chain to hold the hopper doors part way open and control the flow and threw a tie across the rails in front of the wheels. the tie would slide along the rail tops leveling the rock. the flanges kept trying to cut into the tie but the wheels never climbed it. just sort of shoved it along.
grizlump
I had to laugh. All that mechanized equipment, and they had two guys riding along putting them in place by hand.
It seems to me that getting the ballast right is the most time consuming part of the process, like it is for me in 1/87 scale.
True enough, Phil, and we even use the dynamic stabilization technique (except we don’t have the fancy gizmo with the digging tines…we just tap the rails with a paint brush or a dowel). Very good video!!
-Crandell
That was an awesome video!!! I never seen that before, I always wondered how they lay track so fast, for miles and miles. It’s very different than a bunch of workers doing it by hand back in the old days!
Some of those machines are really cool, I want one of those for spreading ballast, hehehe. That would be a neat thing to model.
Anyone know how long it takes them to lay track? Say like 1 mile per 2 hours?
Thanks for sharing the video, I learn something new every day.
Good Video
I got to see similar equipment in action recently on a trolley line being upgraded. I find it amazing that in the 1800’s track was laid much faster. The trolley area has been down for 2 months and it’s only a couple of miles. Of course the quality wasn’t there but they did got it done. With the machinery available you’d think they could move a bit faster these days.