A spike puller is a railroad maintenance of way machine designed to remove rail spikes from ties. [1] The spike puller automates the task of spike removal, allowing it to be done at a rate greater than can be achieved by hand. Spike pullers range from small hand operated hydraulic machines to self propelled machines controlled by an operator in an enclosed cab.
Traditionally, spikes were pulled by hand with spike mauls, which act similar to the claw on a claw hammer on a larger scale. This task was labor-intensive and slow, requiring multiple track workers to be done in a reasonable amount of time. For small-scale jobs, spikes may still be removed by hand today, but larger projects will instead use mechanized spike pullers. By using hydraulic force and pulling directly upwards, spike pullers are both faster and more powerful than a worker with a spike maul, and extract spikes vertically to avoid damaging them, to allow them to be reused. [1]
Spikes must be removed before the rails or ties can be replaced, as the spikes hold them together. Spike pullers will often work with other machines such as tie extractor/inserters and spike drivers as part of a section crew. [1]
Spike pullers are self-propelled by a diesel engine and travel along the railroad tracks. A typical spike puller is a small, two axle machine. Most spike pullers are designed only to remove spikes on one side of the tracks, meaning that two machines must be used together to remove all the spikes from both rails. Some larger spike pullers are designed to pull spikes on both rails at the same time, these are known as two rail or dual spike pullers. [2]
When not very many spikes need to be removed, or where there is not enough clearance for a self-propelled spike puller, smaller and cheaper manually operated spike pullers may be used. These may ride along the tracks on wheels, or may be small and light enough to be carried and moved by hand. [3]
A spike puller uses one or more claws to grab under the head of a spike and pull it from the tracks. The spike will then be deposited trackside for later collection, either to be reused or scrapped. At its most basic, a spike puller will only have one claw which can be moved to either side of the rail to pull spikes. Most modern spike pullers instead have two claws placed on either side of the rail, allowing for two spikes to be pulled at once. Two rail spike pullers expand this to up to 4 spikes at once. [2]
Promontory is an area of high ground in Box Elder County, Utah, United States, 32 mi (51 km) west of Brigham City and 66 mi (106 km) northwest of Salt Lake City. Rising to an elevation of 4,902 feet (1,494 m) above sea level, it lies to the north of the Promontory Mountains and the Great Salt Lake. It is notable as the location of Promontory Summit, where the First transcontinental railroad from Sacramento to Omaha in the United States was officially completed on May 10, 1869. The location is sometimes confused with Promontory Point, a location further south along the southern tip of the Promontory Mountains. Both locations are significant to the Overland Route; Promontory Summit is where the original, abandoned alignment crossed the Promontory Mountains while the modern alignment, called the Lucin Cutoff, crosses the mountains at Promontory Point.
A railway track or railroad track, also known as a train track or permanent way, 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.
HO or H0 is a rail transport modelling scale using a 1:87 scale. It is the most popular scale of model railway in the world. The rails are spaced 16.5 millimetres (0.650 in) apart for modelling 1,435 mm standard gauge tracks and trains in HO.
A loader is a heavy equipment machine used in construction to move or load materials such as soil, rock, sand, demolition debris, etc. into or onto another type of machinery.
A baler or hay baler is a piece of farm machinery used to compress a cut and raked crop into compact bales that are easy to handle, transport, and store. Often, bales are configured to dry and preserve some intrinsic value of the plants bundled. Different types of balers are commonly used, each producing a different type of bale – rectangular or cylindrical, of various sizes, bound with twine, strapping, netting, or wire.
A sledgehammer is a tool with a large, flat, often metal head, attached to a long handle. The long handle combined with a heavy head allows the sledgehammer to gather momentum during a swing and apply a large force compared to hammers designed to drive nails. Along with the mallet, it shares the ability to distribute force over a wide area. This is in contrast to other types of hammers, which concentrate force in a relatively small area.
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.
Maintenance of way refers to the maintenance, construction, and improvement of rail infrastructure, including tracks, ballast, grade, and lineside infrastructure such as signals and signs.
A railroad crane is a type of crane used on a railroad for one of three primary purposes: freight handling in goods yards, permanent way (PW) maintenance, and accident recovery work. Although the design differs according to the type of work, the basic configuration is similar in all cases: a rotating crane body is mounted on a sturdy chassis fitted with flanged wheels. The body supports the jib and provides all the lifting and operating mechanisms; on larger cranes, an operator's cabin is usually provided. The chassis is fitted with buffing (UK) and/or coupling gear to allow the crane to be moved by a locomotive, although many are also self-propelled to allow limited movement about a work site.
A snowplow is a device intended for mounting on a vehicle, used for removing snow and ice from outdoor surfaces, typically those serving transportation purposes. Although this term is often used to refer to vehicles mounting such devices, more accurately they are known as winter service vehicles, especially in areas that regularly receive large amounts of snow every year, or in specific environments such as airfields. In other cases, pickup trucks and front end loaders are outfitted with attachments to fulfill this purpose. Some regions that do not frequently see snow may use graders to remove compacted snow and ice off the streets. Snowplows can also be mounted on rail cars or locomotives to clear railway tracks.
A spike driver is a piece of rail transport maintenance of way equipment. Its purpose is to drive rail spikes into the ties on a rail track to hold the rail in place. Many different sizes of spikers are manufactured and in use around the world.
Tramway track is used on tramways or light rail operations. Grooved rails are often used to provide a protective flangeway in the trackwork in city streets. Like standard rail tracks, tram tracks consist of two parallel steel rails.
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.
A work train is one or more rail cars intended for internal non-revenue use by the railroad's operator. Work trains serve functions such as track maintenance, maintenance of way, revenue collection, system cleanup and waste removal, heavy duty hauling, and crew member transport.
A tie crane or tie handler, is a piece of rail transport maintenance of way equipment used to move and handle the railroad ties used in rail tracks using track relaying. The machines are used as an alternative to the manual labor once used. Tie cranes frequently work with tie extractor/inserters to replace ties as part of a section gang.
A rail fastening system is a means of fixing rails to railroad ties or sleepers. The terms rail anchors, tie plates, chairs and track fasteners are used to refer to parts or all of a rail fastening system. The components of a rail fastening system may also be known collectively as other track material, or OTM for short. Various types of fastening have been used over the years.
A spike maul is a type of hand tool used to drive railroad spikes in railroad track work. It is also known as a spiking hammer.
A track renewal train is a work train that consists of many units of machinery and materials required for track renewal projects.
A Tie exchanger is a self-propelled railroad maintenance of way vehicle that removes old railroad ties from tracks and inserts new ones. By using mechanical and hydraulic force, a tie extractor/inserter can replace ties much faster and with more precision than is possible by hand.
Nordco, Inc. is an American manufacturer of railroad maintenance of way and inspection equipment, based in Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Founded in 1926, it has been a subsidiary of Wabtec since 2021. The company is one of the top manufacturers of railroad maintenance equipment in North America.