Track Inspectors

[Anonymous]

I'm Interested in learning more about who and what a track inspector does. Where would one look for information, can anyone please help lead me in the right direction . Thanks.

[locomutt]

Do a 'Google' search,or on the Forums,ask Mudchicken.

[csxengineer98]

they inspect the track... job title is self explanitory...lol
csx engineer

[mudchicken]

BWR:
Something happen to CSXEngineer while busy playing in the electrical cabinet in the back of his cab again?

A properly trained track inspector has been a railroader for several years. It's not a job just handed to someone off the street. By federal rule (49CFR213...http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/52...........http://www.transalert.com/cgi-bin/details.cgi?inv=BKTSSAF&cat=20..) that person "has at least a minimum 1 year of supervisory experience in railroad track maintenance" and several related items in 49CFR213.7) .... It takes considerable training to show a person the difference between what something looks like and what it is supposed to do. A classic example would be with ties - If it holds a spike, maintains gauge & surface, not split and you can't see through holes in it, it is still good. Being that a year of supervisory experience is required, it is implied you will be rules qualified as well. The experience cannot be solely out of a college program or a correspondence course. It takes time to gain a firm understanding of how track structure works under different conditions and speed requirements ....

....Lesson #1 in being a track supervisor is (and will always be) Drainage, Drainage, Drainage!

Having gone this far on a rather broad question, can we narrow down what really interests you?

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[Anonymous]

MC -

Please discuss the basics of Drainage for us idiots who merely run over your handiwork...

Thanks,

LC

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

BWR:
Something happen to CSXEngineer while busy playing in the electrical cabinet in the back of his cab again?

A properly trained track inspector has been a railroader for several years. It's not a job just handed to someone off the street. By federal rule (49CFR213...http://www.fra.dot.gov/us/content/52...........http://www.transalert.com/cgi-bin/details.cgi?inv=BKTSSAF&cat=20..) that person "has at least a minimum 1 year of supervisory experience in railroad track maintenance" and several related items in 49CFR213.7) .... It takes considerable training to show a person the difference between what something looks like and what it is supposed to do. A classic example would be with ties - If it holds a spike, maintains gauge & surface, not split and you can't see through holes in it, it is still good. Being that a year of supervisory experience is required, it is implied you will be rules qualified as well. The experience cannot be solely out of a college program or a correspondence course. It takes time to gain a firm understanding of how track structure works under different conditions and speed requirements ....

....Lesson #1 in being a track supervisor is (and will always be) Drainage, Drainage, Drainage!

Having gone this far on a rather broad question, can we narrow down what really interests you?

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

i never said it wasnt a skilled job...i said the job title is self explanitory...a track inspector inspects the ttracks... regardless of what they are looking for it boils down to inspection of track...
it was supost to be funny..but i guess it was lost on you....
csx engineer

[mudchicken]

Oh, I got it. ..... Just thought hoggers were a little more thick skinned and could "take it" as well as "dish it out"....and I did not have license to pull out the "mirror" routine[:D][:D][:D]

[Mookie]

MC - you must remember, they can't see us smiling! Gets us funny people in trouble!

[tree68]

QUOTE: Originally posted by Limitedclear

MC -
Please discuss the basics of Drainage for us idiots who merely run over your handiwork...
Thanks,
LC

Kind of reminds me of a favorite phrase my EMS instructors use: Blood goes round and round, air goes in and out. Any variation on this is a bad thing.

It's a little simpler with drainage. Water runs down hill. Any variation is a bad thing.

[kenneo]

LC --- take some dirt, put it into a container, then add water. After a while, take something like the broad end of a cold chisel and rapidly poke it in and out or the water and dirt. Repeat and repeat.

Next, take the same experiment and omit the water.

Drainage, drainage, drainage.

[mudchicken]

Drainage, Drainage,Drainage...

If you are only treating the symptoms instead of the cause, you are fighting a losing battle. Water increases decay and shortens the life of the tie. Water gives life to the mudmonster, decreases tie life, fouls the ballast and suballast causing surface/cross-level headaches (Mookie saw this recently), causing ballast pockets, causing additional wear and tear on the rail and fastenings.

The whole house of cards eventually fails if something at the bottom fails. The track supervisor had best fix the track problem/ exception that he found plus search for the underlying root cause, then call for help. If he does not, he's in for bigger problems in a relatively short period of time.

You do NOT want to see water or mud standing anywhere near the track for this reason and thus DRAINAGE-DRAINAGE-DRAINAGE! (Same story, any railroad)

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[:0] If it gets really bad, you get conditions like what the old CNW "Cowboy Line" and South Dakota lines had after DM&E took over what was left. Standing derailments. DM&E would place a car on a sidetrack in "normal" conditions at the end of the day. The next morning, the car would be found derailed or lying on its side after the expansive clays in the roadbed got wet, swelled-up or shrank under load with the track more than a foot out of crosslevel. Extreme liquifaction!

[csxengineer98]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

Oh, I got it. ..... Just thought hoggers were a little more thick skinned and could "take it" as well as "dish it out"....and I did not have license to pull out the "mirror" routine[:D][:D][:D]

my bad.... my brain is running on half power the past few months....lol
csx engineer

[MP173]

Mud:

Thanks for your reply. A couple of questions if you dont mind.

1. How big of territory do you inspect? Are track inspectors set up every 20 miles or so?
2. Do you inspect the track daily?
3. What kind of resources do you have at your disposal for your territory... manpower, equipment, etc .

thanks,

ed

[mloik]

Mudchicken,

Thanks for the insight on the effects of water on track.

My 2 yr and 8 month old son and I were looking at a CF7 on blocks this past weekend at the local tourist line (swapping out the traction motors or wheel sets, I suspect), and he noted that there was a lot of water on the tracks of the siding on which the unit sat. Pretty observant for the little guy.

Planetary scientists call ours the "water planet" for a good reason. It's a heavy, flowing liquid, unlike glass, which is technically a liquid but too thick to readily flow (some may have seen "slumping" in windows of pioneer buildings in which the glass has flowed due to gravity over a hundred or so years.)

Because of its mass, hydrogen bonding, and other colligative properties, water is imparted with a lot of energy when subject to gravitational potential. As you well know, this plays heck with ballast, concrete, cement, wood, asphalt, farm fields, ditches, deforested areas, and on and on.

Regards,
Michael

[mudchicken]

MP:

Tonnage, train frequency, "clepto" / overwhelmed dispatcher won't let you look at your railroad, age of the track structure, condition of the steel, class of track?

By law:

(a)Sidetracks inspected at least once a month.

(b) Main tracks, switches and main track sidings inspected at least once a week (or more as dictated by tonnage, passenger train frequency, train frequency and individual chief engineer's instructions)

And yes, I have taken track out of service (over operating department objections) until I could get it inspected on the proper interval.

It's a balancing act and generally, you cannot win. And manpower?

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[mudchicken]

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

MP:

Tonnage, train frequency, "clepto" / overwhelmed dispatcher won't let you look at your railroad, age of the track structure, condition of the steel, class of track?

By law:

(a)Sidetracks inspected at least once a month.

(b) Main tracks, switches and main track sidings inspected at least once a week (or more as dictated by tonnage, passenger train frequency, train frequency and individual chief engineer's instructions)

And yes, I have taken track out of service (over operating department objections) until I could get it inspected on the proper interval.

It's a balancing act and generally, you cannot win. And manpower? [(-D][(-D][(-D][censored][censored][censored][:(!][:(!][:(!]

[banghead][banghead][banghead]

[edblysard]

You know who has the mirror?
Wabash isnt around, and I though he took it with him.....[:D]
Ya know, hes gotta keep the Elvis "do" just right....

QUOTE: Originally posted by mudchicken

Oh, I got it. ..... Just thought hoggers were a little more thick skinned and could "take it" as well as "dish it out"....and I did not have license to pull out the "mirror" routine[:D][:D][:D]

[Mookie]

Ed - newcomers are going to think you and MC are nuts commenting on the mirror!

We should fill them in that I asked a perfectly decent question some time back about the mirrors by the windows on a locomotive cab. It went right into the dirt after that.

Something about engineers and conductors and vanity. And with cold weather and darkened glass on the windows - I can't tell who is checking the mirror!

It's a bummer

Mook

[tree68]

Vanity? We have no problem with vanity here (excuse me while I check my hair). I know I'm fond of pointing out to people that my humility is one of my outstanding virtues....

[jeaton]

Mookie

It was a worthy discussion.

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7712

One learns something gnu every day.

Jay

[jchnhtfd]

MC is oh so right -- keep the water out of the track and ballast section, and most of your problems are history (well... there are such things as shelly rail and so on...). Something the guys who design the railroads are well aware of, and usually go to great lengths to accomplish (not always, before someone jumps on me!, and not always successfully!)(and you have to keep that ballast clean, something which annoys the operating department and the bean counters). Also something that highway engineers don't seem to have figured out, even yet...

[Mookie]

QUOTE: Originally posted by jeaton

Mookie

It was a worthy discussion.

http://www.trains.com/community/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7712

One learns something gnu every day.

Jay

That was one of our funnier subjects!

Thanx for the trip down memory lane!