Rail roads and their tracks.

[JethroB]

I see slowly but surely, America's railroads are getting away creosote coated wooden sleepers and going to pre cast concrete ones. Last longer, less maintenance and no disposal issues, plus the hold down hardware stays put.

Some steel ties too in suitable places like sidings and turnouts.

Any single steel tie can function properly for 50 years before needing repairs, compared to just 12-15 years for a wood equivalent. Spent steel ties can then be recycled as scrap or repaired with minor welding and returned to service.

 

[5030]

I keep wondering with ever increasing cost of diesel fuel if the railroads are also increasing the length of their consists to offset the increasing cost of fuel? I'm sure they have a contract cost but it still has to be going up Diesel-electric locomotives aren't exactly 'economical' to operate.

 

[MossRoad]

I

I keep wondering with ever increasing cost of diesel fuel if the railroads are also increasing the length of their consists to offset the increasing cost of fuel? I'm sure they have a contract cost but it still has to be going up Diesel-electric locomotives aren't exactly 'economical' to operate.

I know they’re increasing the length of trains due to labor shortage and engine shortage. They put many into storage, then decreased their labor pool, then demand went up. So even when they bring mothballed locos out of storage, they don’t have people to run them.

 

[JethroB]

I posted earlier about my employer before retiring building a new poultry feed mill. The mill takes a 90 car unit train of corn about every 12 days. (325,000 bushels). The mill has total corn storage capacity of one million bushels. One reason for the extra capacity is to buffer out supply disruptions. Those 8 million chickens on the farms don’t want to hear of supply and railroad issues, they just wanna eat.

 

[5030]

One issue with the rail is and has been timely delivery of product. Good friend owns and operates a large (26 10K bottle) propane storage facility west of here and he's always had delivery issues with the rail (has a siding off the main line into his facility). The rail's philosophy is, it gets there when it gets there but the issue with propane deliveries is, it has to be pumped off and not knowing when the delivery comes, he has to be at the ready anytime of the day or night and then there is the detention charges the rail imposes after a short period. They don't even bother to tell him a delivery of cars has been made, only way he knows is when the electric eye on the rail siding is interrupted and he gets a message on his cell phone.

 

[MossRoad]

Sounds convenient.

 

[5030]

Why he has most of it delivered by tractor trailer.

 

[kenmbz]

The concrete ties they put in along the NEC on NJ Transit are constantly being replaced.
They crack and fail quite a bit.

Lots of trains in the last two weeks. High speed trains in Italy 300KM/hour. Naples to Venice in 5.5 hours. Rome to Naples in a few hours. All nice comfortable trains. Extremely clean and most seats filled.

Took the Swiss rail, cog trains from Grindelwald to Kleine-Scheidegg - old cog train. and then the new cog train up into the Eiger mountains to JungFrauJoch. The train travels quite a way inside the mountain and both trains do quite a bit of climbing.

The Cog rail in the station is thinner than the ones up the mountain.

This train looks and feels similar to the one I took 30 years ago to Kleine-Scheidegg.
No pictures of the higher speed new cog train as it was crowded on the platform.

 

[Hay Dude]

I took the Manitou and Pikes Peak Cog Railway last summer.
VERY nice
Swiss built cars with Cummins diesels in them!

 

[Joel/ak]

The road into our property is an old railbed. The line ran from grand rapids to Muskegon (MI). I guess they knocked over a few cars back in the day on our property. Guess it was a pretty good wreck and pictures were taken supposedly. Trying to find a copy so I can frame it for my dad.

Our property line is pretty much at the edge of the old bridge