This week there was a derailment of a MOW train on the LIRR which ripped up over a mile of track. To make a long story short this morning they said that a long train was crawling along ripping old wooden ties at one end and replacing them with new concrete ties at the other end. Was thinking though big i’d like to see if anyone has ever tried modeling this.
To do so would be incredibly intricate/hard. It will be interesting to see if anyone responds that they have done so.
Richard
There was a thread on these forums a few years back on the topic of how do you model a “rail train” of lengths of welded rail? On the prototype the trains go through curves and the rail, which is resting on a series of brackets on each flat car, curves along with the train. That is hard to replicate given our model curves and larger than scale rail. I think the final idea was to use lengths of Plastruct structural plastic that perhaps would not be an actual railhead shape.
I do not think the person who asked the question intended to model a full length rail train – those can be huge — but there are some club layouts that could handle such a train and it would be a conversation piece. The flatcars tend to have unusual brackets for the rail. You’d need dozens of identical brackets and that in turn suggests constructing a jig to aid and speed up construction.
Dave Nelson
Dave
Correct my question was just out of curiosity. According to the news story I heard this on the train is over a 1/4 mile long so I doubt the average MR would be up to the challange Still parts could be modeled say parked in a maintenance yard.
N Scale welded rail train:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=f5p90_9OCm0
What the OP is talking about is NOT a welded rail train. It is a TRT, a track renewal train. It really isn’t a train as much as a big machine that pulls up the old rail, removes the ties, places brand new ties and then replaces the rail. The front of the machine is on old track and the rear of the machine is on new track.
If would really only be feasible to model as a static display since having it work would be extraordinarily difficult. When it is working the railroad is shut down for the entire time it is cut in. Cutting it in and out is a big deal. Often a railroad will leave it cut in continuously until the project is finished.
Search you-tube for “TRT-909” and you will find videos of the machine.
To All,
Back in 2003, when I worked at the CSX Intermodal yard in Bedford Park IL., they added to more tracks in the center of the yard, each track, which they are 2 miles long… They brought the welded rail in the yard, in 10 open ended gondolas, something I never saw before,
Cheers,
Frank
I searched you tube now I see how complex this is I doubt it could be replicated in HO. Well at least its beyond my skill.
Joe, right you are but remember this: where I go railfanning the average (Canadian Pacific) freight train is considerably longer than a 1/4 of a mile, and often longer than a full mile. Many modelers regard a 15 or 20 car train as pretty long and do not hestitate to assign 2 or 3 locomotives to such a train, which any real single locomotive could handle on its own. So there is already precedent for downsizing such a train to manageable length and not feeling too bad about it. A ten car rail train would still be a pretty darn long train on most layouts.
Dave Nelson
In another thread K.P.Harrier has been showing all sorts of pics of the ongoing double tracking of the UP (former SP) Sunset Route from Los Angeles to El Paso.
In his one of his latest posts he showed pics of a track machine at work
http://cs.trains.com/trn/f/111/p/120779/2377358.aspx#2377358
The machine that is shown in the pics has another piece that will go on the end that will pick up the rail and replace the ties.
Rgds IGN
Some of us are old enough to remember the tie replacement trains, all automated, that in essence chomp the middle out of the old tie and spit out the ends to either side, while inserting a new tie underneath the rails. It was something to see, but you did not want to stand too close to the action.
While it was efficient it was a total waste of the timber of the old tie. When I toured the Koppers tie plant in Galesburg IL years ago as part of a Burlington Route Historical Society meet, they showed how they could take old ties, inject a resin in them under high pressure and heat, and in essence create a completely usable “new” tie. Not every old tie was a candidate for this process, but many were, including some that looked pretty far gone to the naked eye. The guy who gave us the tour said that this process was going to make the expensive tie machines that cut the tie in half obsolete soon and I suspect he was correct. That same plant also treated brand new timbers and made ties of them. The old ties arrive in various retired BN or CB&Q coal hoppers as well as GS gondolas. if you visit Galesburg there is some public visibility for photography of the yard but the actual treatment plant is more or less out of photography range.
Interestingly, even a 1930s era Track Cyclopedia that I own says that the biggest challenge for wood ties going forward was the shortage in supply of the right kind of timbers.
Dave Nelson