Model Forum / General / Railroads / June 2010

Rode my motorcycle out along the tracks over Beaumont Hill this
morning and discovered that the U.P. is doing some heavy-duty track
maintenance work out there: cleaning the ballast, Etc.

But leading the pack of track maintenance critters was something that
I've never seen before: a large brown Road-Railer truck that featured
extensible legs to stabilize itself and a large articulated arm in
back that had a big electromagent hung from the end.

Said truck was moving forwards a bit at a time and then extending the
hydraulic legs so that the arm's operator could swing it back and
forth across the ballast and off to the sides to pick up anything
magnetic -misplaced old spikes, tie plates, et all- before the
following machines could inhale them and screw up their delicate
innards.

As best I could tell while going past at 50 MPH, the truck also
features a bin where the steel/iron scrap gets dumped; presumably for
recycling later on. (There was quite a bit of magnetic dross hanging
from the magnet when I rode past, so it must work.)

I'm thinking of riding back out there tomorrow and taking the camera
along.

Anybody be interested in pictures?

~Pete