A ballast cleaner (also known as an undercutter, a shoulder ballast cleaning machine) is a machine that specialises in cleaning the railway track ballast (gravel, blue stone or other aggregate) of impurities. [1]
A ballast cleaner (also known as an undercutter, a shoulder ballast cleaning machine) is a machine that specialises in cleaning the railway track ballast (gravel, blue stone or other aggregate) of impurities. [1]
Over time, ballast becomes worn, and loses its angularity, becoming rounded. This hinders the tessellation of pieces of ballast with one another, and thus reduces its effectiveness. Fine pieces of granite, like sand, are also created by attrition, known simply as "fines". Combined with water in the ballast, these fines stick together, making the ballast like a lump of concrete. This hinders both track drainage and the flexibility of the ballast to constrain the track as it moves under traffic. [2] Ballast cleaning removes this worn ballast, screens it and replaces the "dirty" worn ballast with fresh ballast. [3] [4] The advantage of ballast cleaning is that it can be done by an on-track machine without removing the rail and sleepers, and it is therefore cheaper than a total excavation.
In the 19th century and early 20th century, ballast was shoveled or forked, then screened by hand using portable devices. [3] [5] Early automated cleaners used vacuum pressure built by a steam locomotive to suck ballast up from the track to feed it into the sifting grates. [6] Link-Belt produced a small machine that would clean the ballast between tracks on a multiple track line; it used a small gasoline engine and was small enough to be operated by a small crew of men, and it was built such that it would not need to be moved as trains passed on adjacent tracks. [5] More fully automated ballast cleaners were developed in the early- to mid-20th century by several companies including Speno [7] and Pullman-Standard; [8] a version of Pullman-Standard's machine was demonstrated in 1949 that was estimated to save railroad companies about $1,000 per mile of track on their maintenance. [9] As the century progressed, other manufacturers entered the market with their own versions. [10]
A cutter bar runs beneath sleeper level excavating all of the ballast under the sleepers to a specified, variable depth. A conveyor then moves the ballast into the cleaner, where it gets forced through a mesh by a shaking chamber. [4] Pieces of ballast which are smaller than the mesh size fall through and are rejected, those that are bigger than the mesh are returned to the track along with fresh ballast. [2] Some ballast cleaners have both ballast and spoil wagons attached to it, to which the materials are fed by a series of conveyor belts. Others simply undercut the ballast, and allow for a work train to come through to dump fresh ballast. This process can be done in short sections, meaning that track life can be considerably extended with the minimum of disruption.
A railway track or railroad track, also known as permanent way or simply track, is the structure on a railway or railroad consisting of the rails, fasteners, railroad ties and ballast, plus the underlying subgrade. It enables trains to move by providing a dependable surface for their wheels to roll upon. Early tracks were constructed with wooden or cast iron rails, and wooden or stone sleepers; since the 1870s, rails have almost universally been made from steel.
The railway track or permanent way is the elements of railway lines: generally the pairs of rails typically laid on the sleepers or ties embedded in ballast, intended to carry the ordinary trains of a railway. It is described as permanent way because in the earlier days of railway construction, contractors often laid a temporary track to transport spoil and materials about the site; when this work was substantially completed, the temporary track was taken up and the permanent way installed.
A railroad tie, crosstie, railway tie or railway sleeper is a rectangular support for the rails in railroad tracks. Generally laid perpendicular to the rails, ties transfer loads to the track ballast and subgrade, hold the rails upright and keep them spaced to the correct gauge.
Gandy dancer is a slang term used for early railroad workers in the United States, more formally referred to as "section hands", who laid and maintained railroad tracks in the years before the work was done by machines. The British equivalents of the term gandy dancer are "navvy", originally builders of canals or "inland navigations", for builders of railway lines, and "platelayer" for workers employed to inspect and maintain the track. In the Southwestern United States and Mexico, Mexican and Mexican-American track workers were colloquially "traqueros".
Track ballast forms the trackbed upon which railroad ties (sleepers) are laid. It is packed between, below, and around the ties. It is used to bear the load from the railroad ties, to facilitate drainage of water, and also to keep down vegetation that might interfere with the track structure. Ballast also holds the track in place as the trains roll over it. A variety of materials have been used as track ballast, including crushed stone, washed gravel, bank run (unwashed) gravel, torpedo gravel, slag, chats, coal cinders, sand, and burnt clay. The term "ballast" comes from a nautical term for the stones used to stabilize a ship.
The City of San Francisco was a streamlined through passenger train which ran from 1936 to 1971 on the Overland Route between Chicago, Illinois and Oakland, California, with a ferry connection on to San Francisco. It was owned and operated jointly by the Chicago and North Western Railway (1936–55), Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad (1955–71), the Union Pacific Railroad, and the Southern Pacific Railroad. It provided premium extra fare service from Chicago to San Francisco when introduced in 1936 with a running time of 39 hours and 45 minutes each way.
The Atlantic, Waycross and Northern Railroad was formed on March 6, 1911, as a successor to the St. Mary's and Kingsland Railroad. Its charter was to build a line connecting St. Mary's to Fort Valley, Georgia. On the reorganization, stockholders approved a measure to issue $4.8 million in bonds and $1.5 million in new stock to equip the new line, pending approval by the Georgia railroad commission. The railroad was permitted to issue stocks and bonds valuing $6.2 million on June 9, 1911.
A tamping machine or ballast tamper, informally simply a tamper, is a self-propelled, rail-mounted machine used to pack the track ballast under railway tracks to make the tracks and roadbed more durable and level. Prior to the introduction of mechanical tampers, this task was done by manual labour with the help of beaters. As well as being faster, more accurate, more efficient and less labour-intensive, tamping machines are essential for the use of concrete sleepers since they are too heavy to be lifted by hand.
On 5 November 1967, a busy Sunday evening train service from Hastings to London Charing Cross derailed near the Hither Green maintenance depot in London, between Hither Green and Grove Park railway stations. Of the twelve coaches, many full of standing passengers, eleven were derailed and four turned onto their sides, resulting in 49 fatalities and 78 injuries. It is Britain's sixth worst rail disaster in terms of death toll.
A derail or derailer is a device used to prevent fouling of a rail track by unauthorized movements of trains or unattended rolling stock. The device works by derailing the equipment as it rolls over or through it.
Phillip Lesher Auten was an American business executive in the lumber and mining industries, best remembered as controlling owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates professional baseball team of the National League (NL) from 1893 through 1900 with William Kerr.
James McCrea (1848–1913) was the president of the Pennsylvania Railroad from 1907 to 1913.
The Connellsville train wreck was a rail accident that occurred on December 23, 1903, on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad near Connellsville, Pennsylvania. The Duquesne Limited, a passenger train, derailed when it struck a load of timber lying on the tracks. The timber had fallen from a freight train minutes before the collision. The crash resulted in 64 deaths and 68 injuries.
The New England States was a passenger train operated by the New York Central Railroad and its successor Penn Central over the Water Level Route between Chicago and Boston. It was launched in 1938, in tandem with the relaunch of the newly-streamlined 20th Century Limited, and assumed responsibility for that train's Boston sleepers. In 1949 it became the first Chicago–Boston streamliner. The New York Central dropped the name in 1967; an unnamed remnant continued running until 1971. Amtrak's Lake Shore Limited now serves the route.
River Works, formerly known as Air Force Plant 29, is a plant of General Electric's aviation division located in Lynn, Massachusetts. It is serviced by the River Works station on the MBTA's Newburyport/Rockport Line. It was purchased by General Electric in 1983 from the United States Air Force.
A track renewal train is a work train that consists of many units of machinery and materials required for track renewal projects.
Etihad Rail DB is a heavy-rail Operations & Maintenance (O&M) service provider in the UAE. The company was set up in 2013 as a joint venture between Etihad Rail (51%), the developer of the UAE's national railway network and Deutsche Bahn (DB) (49%), Europe's largest railway operator and infrastructure owner. Etihad Rail DB is responsible for the operations and maintenance of Stage One of the UAE's national railway network for Etihad Rail’s primary customer, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC). Etihad Rail DB concluded an Operations & Maintenance (O&M) Agreement with Etihad Rail in August 2013.
Gravel Switch is an area along the Paducah & Louisville Railway (PAL) between the Kentucky Dam on the Tennessee River and Grand Rivers in Livingston County, Kentucky, United States near the interchange of U.S. Route 62 and Kentucky Route 453. The gravel of the area was prized as one of the best cementing gravels for the construction of railroad track ballast. It remains a rail, barge, and transloading terminal for aggregates for Vulcan Materials Company's Grand Rivers Quarry.
A ballastless track or slab track is a type of railway track infrastructure in which the traditional elastic combination of ties/sleepers and ballast is replaced by a rigid construction of concrete or asphalt.
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