When she came in from work today my wife told me about a type of work train she had seen. This is her description of it:
The 'locomotive' wasn't your ordinary looking engine, it was yellow and had a large windshield and large side windows. There were 4 or so cars that were especially built for some purpose and they had what looked to her like generators on them. They weren't flat cars, gons or box cars but the machinery was an intregal part of the car. She noticed a sign down low on one of them that had two words, she could only make out the second word which was 'grinding'. There was a caboose type car at the end that was yellow, didn't have a cupola, but did have a kind of 'dish' on top, probably for recieving or transmitting signals. The 'dish' was small, similar to the type the Dish Network installs on homes. There was no railroad name on any of the equipment that she could see. She said the 'generator cars' (whatever they were) were very grimy and oily looking. She saw several of the crew on the ground beside the train and they were equally grimy looking. Except for the supervisors...
What type train was this and what is it's purpose?
My best guess is something like this
http://rides.webshots.com/photo/2798150940071367402iWBPGB
JaRRell
May your flanges always stay BETWEEN the rails
This was most likely a Loram rail grinding train, as stated above.
Rail Grinders are used to remove irregularities from the rails and restore their profile in order to extend the life of the rails before they need to be replaced. You should see them work at night! Sparks fly everywhere making for a pretty impressive light show! Usually they have a few water tanks in the train and a manually operated high pressure water pump on the rear to put out any brushfires caused by the sparks coming off the rails.
Hope this helps!
-Brandon
Have you folks noticed the low-frequency hum the cars create while rolling on freshly ground rail? Apparently the grinder leaves tiny lateral grooves (scratches) on the railhead that make the sound as the wheels go along. The sound goes away after a few months as the scratches become smoother.
Yes, that had to be what it was. I forgot to mention she said there was a black tank car in the consist also.
Jarrell
Let's see...Big windows, generators, black tank car, Caboose without coupla....Hmmm....
You mean like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xEIod8KoMaE