It's amazing how much us common folk take for granted. I've watched several videos on track and ballast maintenance today and never realized the work and engineering that goes into the rail system.
In my youth I was a Sectionman for Burlington Northern Railroad. We tamped miles of track by hand after replacing rotted or damaged ties. On the rare occasion when they brought in the Tampamatic we’d get a welcomed break. I was in the best shape of my life. One summer I got plenty of overtime doing the whole Sioux City, Iowa rail yard.
I work for the rebuild shop at plasser American. Cool to see the equipment I build in action. Those tamping heads are a lot of fun to tear apart and put together.
If you think this machine is something, you should see the one that swaps old wood crossties for new concrete ones. It's on the Pentrex video "Working on the Railroad"-check it out.
I wonder if you can help me? Do Tamping machine's have lasers on them and if they do, do they point upwards towards the sky and what colour are the laser beams on them?
The lasers are usually red and they are used to measure the track alignment. They are aimed at receivers (not at the sky!) to keep the track in alignment.
