To save everybody a lot of time and scrolling through the comments, I will tell you what this machine does. It picks up all the rocks at the side of the track, separates out all the sand and dirt, which is discarded, washes the rocks, coats them with Armour-All so they retain their clean look for a long time, then lays the rock back down all aligned by the grain of the rock (scanned by lasers) for the best possible shine from the microcrystals in the rock. The shine is enhanced by the Armour-All coating. This is done strictly for safety purposes, so the lights from the train, together with the modified reflective surface of the rock enhance the visibility at night so the train engineer is able to spot small animals such as squirrels crossing the track, and is able to stop the train in time to let them cross safely. This rock cleaning operation they have done over thousands of miles of track has saved the lives of over 50 small animals such as squirrels. Very impressive record!
They also apply New Rail scented track freshener in my town for the residents which are plagued with S.T.S. (stinky track syndrome) and have trouble breathing. I was surprised to read of them using Armour-All where you're from for the ballast. We don't have the budget for that,so we just use Aqua Net Super-Hold hairspray. It takes forever to apply by spray can,but it holds the rock together very stylishly and has a nice healthy sheen.
Railroad equipment never ceases to amaze me. A friend of mine used to work in a railway shop. Occasionally we sit around in his shop drinking a cold beer and sharing stories. I really like the stories about the rail grinders. Of course, I don't recall all the details but there are a series of grinders that re-shape the worn rails in series at a pretty remarkable speed. Sounded like their biggest concern was setting the ties on fire.
I doubt they would stop a train because a squirrel or some other small animal is on the track. However, they might honk the horn to get them out of the way. Most train drivers don't concentrate that closely anyway to see small objects ahead on the track. It would cause too much fatigue over a several-hour train run.
Saw one of these a few years ago. Was at the railroad crossing, so had to wait for it to finish and clear the crossing (idiot me didn't think to grab my phone and video it). One of the worker came over and talked to us. It sifts dirt, small rock and other debris from the ballast and puts it off to the side and returns the ballast back to the track side. Clean ballast drains better. Wish I could remember the cost he said it was, but very expensive.
Just throwing this out there... If you guys have questions about working on one of these just shoot me a line, I worked a few weeks on BC-11 and spent the majority of my time on BC-10 from a groundsman (walking in ffront calling out everything) to B cab(shapes the ballast and controls everything back of the hopper) and A cab ( drove the train and operated the digging wheels and shaker).
Very cool machine. I don't think anything like that has ever been used on any track within 100 miles of here where I am at. The machines they used around here wore hard hats and carried lunch buckets LOL.
Ok Ballast cleaning. But what exactly is happening. What was before this machine and what is after it has passed by doing its thing? I was actually out walking a rail line a few days ago picking up hundreds of old rail spikes as they are great steel for all kinds of jobs and projects on a lathe. I could see that so many were mixed in with new ballast when new concrete sleepers had been laid. Personally I'm glad there were no massive magnets picking up all the steel because I got heaps and its great stuff.
I've seen one in person back in the 90's at a rail crossing. But how is it actually "cleaning"? I see rocks from the track side scooped up, looks like their filtered then put back. Why the filtering, and the clean rock on a dump car? This machine is always interesting to watch...but I can never understand fully what it does.
the smaller and smoother rocks fall through the cracks... those get discarded. the good ballast flows back down. they have a cart of good ballast to replenish the tracks when the returned ballast is too little to make it proper fill
This is a common practice especially in mountain territory to keep good drainage. Where do you suppose all the sand the locomotive's put down for better traction goes? It drops into the ballast and stops water from flowing freely through the ballast so you need to clean it. You PRR fans, ever wonder why the PRR lines sat on several feet of ballast? Before ballast cleaners were invented the only way to ensure good drainage was to lay down a new layer of fresh ballast. Now the machine in this video is a shoulder ballast cleaner but to clean all the ballast you use a undercutting ballast cleaner which removes all the ballast up to a depth of 36 inches below the ties. When they brought in 2 undercutter cleaners there first pass the operators removed 36 inches of ballast and were running too fast to properly clean it so 90 percent of the removed ballast was wasted as spoil on the side of the right of way.2.9 miles of mainline mountain railroad of service for a month until over 300,000 tons of new ballast were brought in to fix the screwup. The railroad assigned track supervisors to closely watch what the contract ballast cleaners were doing and the track was usually returned to service by the end of the day. We used 200 modified old cement hoppers to dump the ballast one 100 car train was loading while one was being dumped. The quarry where we loaded the ballast was less than 20 mile away.
So you’re saying the ballast cleaner removed three feet of sand? If the tracks had never been cleaned wouldn’t the cleaning job have lowered the track height? Which was to be expected? Or was it important to keep the track height the same which explained the new ballast being brought in. If they were dumping ballast on the side why couldn’t they just use that ballast? Why bring in new ballast? Just wondering.
Took a while for the operators to realise that the dirty ballast was going back down on the far side of the track! The ballast doesn't look that dirty to start with, is this an important line?
When I was a freight car inspector I saw these crews doing the same thing in the yards I worked..When the hopper car was full of the old ballast they wouldn't get another car, they'd just let the rocks fall to both sides of the track they were cleaning and we, the car inspectors, would have to walk on the big ass rocks to inspect the trains...Not good....
wow that is pretty cool I have never seen a ballast cleaner before I wonder if all the railroads including the Ohio Central railroad and the Columbus and Ohio River railroad has one of those
Not washes, we would just send it through a hopper that had 3 levels and 5 screen sizes that would shake the dirt and sand off the ballast, then boom backonto the track to be shaped
Doesn't this ballast cleaner also take the ballast from underneath of the ties? In the video it appears that it's only cleaning what's left and right of the track.
очень, очень, очень, большое, большое, большое спасибо!!! давайте всё ремонтировать!! давайте всё налаживать!! не будем разрушать!!! хватит разрушать!!! ) хватит!!!
Reading the comments I'm glad I'm not the only one who doesn't know what it does....other than create a couple jobs. There must be something about it don't see.
It’s a shoulder ballast cleaner. It cleans the drainage path from the end of the tie and prevents water pooling under the tie where it can pump and destroy the geometry. It’s advantage is it does not disturb the track and is low cost. It’s a cyclic maintenance activity. The alternative is full track rebuilds with 50 times the cost and with it disruption to traffic etc. These have a place in the selection of tools to maintain the track.
As much as i love complicated railway machinery, i don't really see the purpose of this. It doesn't make it look clean, it doesn't seem to remove earth from the mix, and all it does is just cultivating, which ruins all the integrity, that rocks gained with time, laying in shape. Correct me here, please.
Jay Swarrow , dude, exactly. Unless it's specifically picking up railroad spikes and such after said components have been replaced. Other wise this does look useless.
Its a ballast cleaner, It scoops it up and runs it through a shaker that has 3 levels and 6 different screen sizes, the dirt falls to the very bottomand is dumped on the "waste swing" and the ballast falls into the hoppers which drops it for "B cab" to re shape it up to the ties and so it drains properly... ( I worked on BC10 for a few years)
If it works like the other one I've seen a video on it digs out the entire width of the ballast, from unterneath the sleepers and scoops it up on one side.
A couple of questions.... why don't they just call it rocks instead of ballast? Why do the rocks appear to be even more dirty after they are "cleaned"? Why can't they use pavement to lay the ties on instead of rock?
Ballast is a general name given to any material that provides stability to a structure or vehicle. They could bolt the rails to concrete and it is done in some cases like underground railways but above ground the ballast helps with drainage, holds the track in place and absorbs some vibration from passing trains. Cleaning it removes dirt and other contaminants that could prevent water draining away, which if not fixed causes a buildup of mud in the ballast which if left long enough can force trains to slow down as they pass over the dip in the track the mud buildup can cause.
When I worked on a track repair crew, it was also called stone. They bought stone from a rock quarry and then we "dropped stone" on the rails, followed by the ballast tamper machine.
That machine is an undercutter. It has a chain that travels under the ties, drags the ballast out and up to the screens before the ballast is shaken to remove the dirt and fines before directing the ballast back to the track. If the ballast is too dirty or broken down, the ballast can be dumped off the side and replaced with new. A trench has to be dug from one side of the track to the other and the chain threaded through the trench and hooked together to start or separated to end. Both of these processes are expensive but not nearly so as to dismantle the track and scoop out the ballast and rebuild the track.
@@royreynolds108 looked again .... and I'm still not seeing the ballast "underneath" the ties getting dragged out. Could just be simply that a correct camera angle is not present. I would also think that if it's being cleaned out underneath the ties that the track would have to be suspended, no?
The purpose is to remove dirt and "fines" (small stones) from the ballast that trap water and result in poor drainage. It improves the drainage capability of the ballast.
LORAM operates mainly in the US and CANADA but I know a few years back we bought a UK company to startoperating over there and I know we set trains to china, brazil, mexico, germany and one or 2 other countries.
To hold the track to elevation, grade, and line besides spreading the high loads from the ties to the ground so the ties don't sink into the grade. Also to provide drainage so the grade does not become saturated and make mud.
@@y0urm0mmy1 both i would imagine. Oversize being branches and what not, fines would be dust and needles and so forth. Not that I would know just worked on a crushing plant.
Marry Ellen This machine is called an under cutter. There is a chain in front that pulls rock out from under, and in between the ties to the outside for the bucket wheels to dump into the screening plant.
In der циффилизоффанное общество вышеперечисленныя предметты на ..Й не требуютцца. Я на другое обратил внимание: что под решёткой балласт не чистится, как при русском (как это делали в СССР при помощи баластёра со щебнеочистительной машиной) способе ремонта и восстановления пути.
