MOW equipment

[Anonymous]

Recently I saw a surpriingly long train on the NS, made up of all orange open hoppers, with the letters "MW" after the car numbers

My guess is that this was a ballast train?

Forced me to wonder, typically, what does such a railroad do with this non-revenue equipment when it is not in use? Do they have a dedicated yard somewhere to use as parking lot, or do they just stash it wherever conveniant?

[CShaveRR]

Assuming that there is a time when the equipment isn't being used, it would probably be returned to the closest available point to where it would be loaded for its next use (e.g., the ballast cars would go toward the quarry where they'd be loaded).

No doubt the cars you saw were in a train by themselves, which is capable of roaming the entire NS system, supplying ballast to track projects wherever it's needed. Those cars aren't idle too often, nor are the welded-rail trains. I'm sure Mr. Mudchicken can confirm or refute that.

In bygone days, when cars such as tool cars and camp cars were more common, you'd see a number of such cars assigned to each yard, or to a wrecking crew, or whatever. We do have some loads of ballast and panel track stored at our yard for emergency use.

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by CShaveRR



No doubt the cars you saw were in a train by themselves, which is capable of roaming the entire NS system, supplying ballast to track projects wherever it's needed. Those cars aren't idle too often

H'mmmm,..roams the entire system, huh?...With dedicated engineers? or would they swap crews just as with thru freights?

[Dough]

Did you see hoppers like these?

http://www.krunk.org/~joeshaw/pics/ns/co-cars/ballast.shtml

Or these converted crosstie cars?

http://www.krunk.org/~joeshaw/pics/ns/co-cars/gondola.shtml

With the tie cars I see them bring them to a nearby yard. Then they pull them out and a backhoe or trac-hoe unloads them. With the ballast cars, I hardly ever see them idle for long.

Also, around here they use the local crews for MoW operations in the area.

[Anonymous]

Dough,

Pretty much the first one,...

All in all, the train was full of surprises,

1) the motive power was 2 grey ghosts, and I've never see 2 on the same tran before
2) the entire train was made up of these ballast cars, normally when I see orange car color on NS I know it will be MOW, but I never expected to see so many at once.
3) train was big,..way longer than I expected, I didn't think to start counting cars soon enough, but the train just kept coming, and coming, by the time it was past, I wished I had started counting

[edblysard]

Most large yards have a track where MOW cars are stored...along with the odd high wide, stuff like that.We have one, holds about 20 cars, near a road where they can unload ballast into a dump truck if needed.

Ed

[JoeKoh]

i liked when ns did a lot of work along the former nyc main last year.they even parked some mow in our sidings at work.
stay safe
Joe

[wabash1]

the NS ballast trains dont sit long the cars get loaded at the ns rock quarry ( yes ns owns its own quarry and makes its own ballest) when a derailment occurs them ballest cars if loaded already get reroute and in most cases are delivered anywhere on system within 30 hrs . ballast trains are very hard to run as the slack will hit you hard if you notch off soon. the ns cars dont sit they also dont get repaired once broken they figure let it be someone elses problem. ive hauled up to 9500 tons in about 3400 ft. short and heavy

[ValleyX]

No, the trains change crews while in transit just like normal freight trains. There are no trains that roam the system with "dedicated engineers". Well, they may or may not be dedicated [;)] but that's another subject.

However, crews may be called out for as long as a week for work train service, performing duties such as dumping ballast, spreading ties, etc. These crews are usually filled from extra board personel in my part of the world, anyway.