UP Tie Pickup work train 

I'm a retired UP rail train operator/supervisor , hired on Missouri Pacific RR in 1971 as a work equipment mechanic . The rail train power cars were operated by a machine operator on the territory the rail trains were working and they didn't know how to work the power cars and would just tear up everything and the local mechanics would have to make the repairs . This took place when they first started the welded rail department in the early 1960's . The decision to give the rail train operator's jobs was to have a qualified operator and mechanic that could operate the power cars and repair them when needed , when you operate the equipment and know you have to repair what you tear up you take a lot better care of it . Rail train operators were agreement employees and made a lot of overtime and double time . We rail train operators had to ride the rail trains when they had rail on them , we rode the trains from the welding plants to locations the rail was to be unloaded and stayed on the trains when train crew changes and the trains would continue on . Staying on the clock would continue until we would either tie the train up or we would get unloaded and be done with that load . As an example if we were to depart our welding plant here in North Little Rock , Arkansas on a loaded train headed to San Antonio , Texas at 7am on a Monday we would be on straight time and at our original quitting time we would go on overtime ( time and a half ) for 8 hours and them go on double time for 8 hours and then go on time and a half for 16 hours and them back to double time . I was on hundreds of rail trains where I would be on duty 48 hours to as many as 110 hours . Long hard trips but I worked in 18 states of the UP system . When UP bought Missouri Pacific in 83 we started taking rail out on the original UP system that started when you cross the river between Kansas City , Mo and Kansas City , Ks . We original Missouri Pacific employees retained our agreement status . UP rail train supervisors were paid a monthly salary and didn't make overtime , bad deal for them as they worked just like we did . When we worked on the UP side of the system we were considered supervisors but we still was paid as agreement employees . Our department tried to make us officials so we would be on the same monthly salary as the UP supervisors . We got our union involved and they told UP that we were staying as agreement employees and that took care of us . Lot more to the story about that but back to the new work trains in this video . Rail is cut in short pieces now and picked up by these trains versus before we would pickup the rail with our rail trains and the strings of rail would be cut in 1440 foot strings onto 50 string rail trains . UP unloads rail trains buy I don't know what they do for rail train supervisors as since the last Missouri Pacific rail train operator retired and UP was finally able make the jobs supervisors . Sorry for the long story but just a little history about Rail Train Operators/Supervisors and how rail trains operated .

Awesome video 👍😎🇺🇸🚂👍

That's called a slot train. It can be used for multiple things besides ties. I've seen them also used for loading/unloading ballast, rail and tie plates and spikes.

: >) . . That's a neat ' rumble grumble ' . . Nimble doing the pick-up while on the move. Neat catching that entire eastbound consist. Need to watch again and count the cars. Nicely done !

Wow brilliant video wots the weight of tonnes of them locomotives ?

Great video. Can you tell me where specifically on Donner Pass this was filmed. Thank you.

Nice catch and thanks for sharing! Can anyone please explain why UP would redesign and build old SD40-2 units like these as opposed to just using them in what was their current form? Just curious and thanks in advance.

Is a train a train?

What do they do with all the bad ties?

Is it available in Ho scale?

So sad that the "midnight artists" spray their junk on even the MOW equipment.