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Caption: An interesting sight, a new ECO leading an old rail train, filled with 40 and 50 year old modified Gondolas, camp cars... and a MOW caboose at the tail end in the picturesque town of Campbellville Ontario.
Operationally, this was interesting - anyone care to shed light to why? The purpose of this run was to drop on on the Hamilton sub, happened as follows
a) Run entire consist into the north track at Guelph Junction
b) 254 takes the Hamilton sub ahead of the rail train
c) 2255 detaches from train, enters OCS under work authority, reverses back into CTC to take the Hamilton sub to wye, re-enters CTC at Guelph Junction 'east'
d) Finishes weing, re-attach to rear of rail train on north track
e) Shove train clear of the CTC into OCS, to take the south track then Hamilton sub connector, rounding the curve at 3 MPH
f)dropping rail between Guelph Junction and Waterdown once clear of the wye track.
Thanks for any and all comments from those in the know. I did not follow, went home due to commitments.
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I have been wanting to photograph here at Campbellville for a long time…another great shot!
The rail has to be dropped with the train travelling in a specific direction. By pulling the consist backwards down the hill they can anchor the end of a piece of rail to the ground and the loco can pull the train to drop it, rather than feeding the rail with on-board equipment. It also simplifies the process of connecting one piece of rail to the next, instead of reversing the train to drop each piece of rail.
How do you anchor a piece of rail to the ground?
The rail can be chained to the ground (wrapped around a tie with a ‘spike’ through one of the bolt holes) at one end and chained to the next piece of rail at the other end. UP started doing this in the 1970′s, and it means that the train doesn’t need to stop in between each piece of rail.
There have been rumours from many sources that CP plans to add a few passing sidings on the Hamilton Sub, as well as install CTC to Brookfield, with a completion date of 2017 sometime. Again, just a rumour, nothing to quote me on. That might explain the frequent rail trains lately though. 2255 just arrived back in Agincourt a few minutes ago.
Daniel, I don’t think the rail train is for any of the rumours you mentioned. Welded rail needs to be replaced and rail trains aren’t really all that rare – every year they seem to drop rail on most mainlines on account of usage and regular wear and tear, especially on curves.
Rail trains still have to stop before feeding the next piece of rail through the feeder car. The rail crew tell the rest of the gang when the next piece of rail is half way through the entire train. This give the engineer an idea of when to slow down for the next piece to be “pig tailed” together. When the two rails are joined together the engineer must move very slowly until the joined pieces are on the ground.
The starting rail is anchored by a bolt through the rail that the train is standing on. CN always uses the feeder car to drop its rails.
Thanks for the explanations gang.