By Sal Ciofani

So you’ve decided to step beyond just laying LEGO track on baseplates, so you have added ballast and reddish brown or black ties to really make your track come to life.  You might even say it is starting to less like a toy train track, and a little more like realistic model railroad track.  But even the nicest looking high speed mainline track needs good maintenance to keep it in tip top shape so trains can run quickly and safely, without risking catastrophic derailments.  We will take a look at how track is maintained to keep it looking realistic and to keep trains running safely and reliably.    

Track maintenance starts with the ties.  Railroad ties (crossties or sleepers) are made generally made of wood or concrete and serve several functions.  They keep the rails spaced to the proper gauge, and transfer the load of heavy trains to the ballast and subgrade.  Degrading ties can cause the rails to move out of gauge, allowing a passing train’s wheels to fall between the rails and potentially cause the train to derail.  To prevent derailments, railroads send out Maintenance of Way Tie Gangs out to replace ties before they degrade to the extent they can no longer hold the rail in gauge.

Replacing ties is a complex process that requires many specialized pieces of equipment and skilled operators.  The machine that leads the tie gang parade is the spike puller.  Like the name suggests, the spike puller uses claws attached to hydraulic arms to reach down and pull out the railroad spikes that hold the rails and tie plates to the ties.  A pair of “gandy dancers” walk behind the spike puller to collect the removed spikes and toss them into bins on a trailer being pulled by the spike puller.  The bins are hinged so they can be dumped along the right of way at a location, usually near a grade crossing, where a truck can remove them from the site.

The Second machine in line is the Tie Remover/inserter (TRIPP).  Typically tie gangs remove every third tie, this helps to ensure the rails remain in gauge while the tie gang’s equipment moves along the track.  The TRIPP removes old ties by grabbing the end of the tie with a griper on the end of a large hydraulic arm, and pulling it horizontally out from beneath the rails, tie plates and all.  A tie crane, with a specially designed claw, collects the old ties on a tie cart.  When the tie crane has filled its tie cart with old ties, they are banded and left along the right of way for later removal from the site.

With the old ties removed, the process is reversed.  A second tie crane places new ties at each location where an old tie has been removed.  The ties are set outside the rail in position for a second TRIPP to insert the new ties into their final position beneath the rails.  A small ballast tamper sticks its vibrating tamping tools into the ballast, on both sides of the new ties and vibrates ballast up underneath the new ties.  This tamping and vibrating ballast up underneath the new ties ensure the tie and tie plates are held tight against the bottom of the rails for final securement by the spike drivers.  

Before the rail and ties can be spiked together, a workman sets the tie plates, which were pulled from beneath the rails with the old ties, back to their approximate location.  A crew of two men us a HydraLift rail lifter to raise the rail a few inches above the new ties so they can slide the tie plates beneath the rails, atop the new ties.  Now, the rail is ready to be secured to the new ties.  A pair of spike drivers “leap frog” sections of track as they each drive new railroad spikes through the tie plates and into the new ties, securely fastening the rails to the new ties.

 With old degrading ties replaced with new solid ties, the railroad track is ready for trains to run over it again.  But there is still more maintenance work to be done.  In Part Two, we will see how Maintenance of Way crews replace old jointed rail with new continuous welded rail (CWR).