Rail roads and their tracks.

[MossRoad]

ok, see post 1906 or my picture below. This was a fairly big deal for my little village. I counted quite a few cranes and support vehicles. Apparently, the cars laid on their sides even while going real slow. I’ve never seen freight move more than 10-15MPH.

The dirt looking area was cleared with dozers-it was wooded. They had to make a staging area to park all the equipment. Note they made a temporary crossing across the tracks and a second staging area. What are all the white block-looking things? Was thinking absorbent material?
Must have been amazing to watch.

View attachment 747040

Slow speed derailments amaze me.

There's a jog in the South Shore electric commuter train tracks where it comes in to South Bend. The train has to slow down to 5-10 to navigate it. One day, it was going through there and PLOP! two cars just fell over in slow motion. I never did find out what caused it.

 

[ArlyA]

When I worked for North American rail car company*, most of the work we did was derailment damage.

* company is long gone.

 

[5030]

Isn't the Pullman Company (or what is left of it) a Michigan based company? I seem to remember way back in the day when I delivered steel for the company I retired from, delivering to Pullman Corporation in Western Michigan. I used to deliver to Flexible Corporation in Lodenville, Ohio too. They made transit busses there. I believe they are gone as well.

 

[MossRoad]

Pullman is/was in Chicago.

Pullman Company - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[5030]

Pullman is/was in Chicago.

Pullman Company - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

They had something over by GR because I used to deliver to them, slit coils of HR steel. Cannot remember what it was though, other than the invoices said Pullman Corp on them.

 

[ArlyA]

Interesting history of these ship unloaders which includes RR engines and cars used. This was posted elsewhere here.
----------------------------------------
Hulett Unloaders since their creation in 1898 revolutionized the handling of iron ore by reducing labor costs and unloading times of lake boats. Their unique look and awkward movements were described as a "grasshopper leg" or "dinosaur" eating. By the early 1990s Huletts were rendered obsolete due to technological advancements in the processing, shipping, and offloading of iron ore. All have been scrapped except for two dismantled ones on Cleveland's Whiskey Island. They are slowly rusting away while buried in foliage and are nearly forgotten.

 

[BravoXray]

I finally caught the master/slug combo in the Elkhart yard today. Not that great of a picture, but without a ladder it's as good as I could get.
So the master unit NS6195 is an SD40-2 built in December 1980 and converted to a slug master in 2007. The slug NS 863 was converted from and Alco RSD-12 unit that was purchased by PRR, sold to Conrail, upgraded by Alco to and MT-6 slug and sold to NS in 2007.

 

[MossRoad]

Very nice. Thanks!

 

[cqaigy2]

Pretty good picture to me.

 

[MossRoad]

I'm not kidding when I say that I thought Conrail had at least a dozen slugs in the yard around 1986-87. They all seemed to be concentrated at the western end of the yard.