NS MoW Tie and Surface Team Action

Today I was lucky enough to get caught up in a Norfolk Southern Surface and Tie maintenance team. They worked from Glenburn at CP-662 to the Glenburn/Clarks Summit border at around CP-663.5. They worked in the middle of the day and replaced some bad ties and spikes.

NS MoW Ballast Regulator

Here is a Norfolk Southern ballast regulator. This worked at the very front of the maintenance train, and smoothed out the ballast for the rest of the operation. [more info]

NS MoW Spike Pullers

These little guys worked to remove the spikes from the railroad ties that were going to be replaced that day. Notice the light at the bottom left. The operator looks down at the tracks through a hole in the floor, and operates a robotic arm that pulls out the spikes. [more info]

NS MoW Spike Pullers Arm

Here is a close up shot of a spike puller's arm. It goes down, grabs the spike, and pulls it back up. [more info]

NS MoW Tie Crane

This tie crane was picking up all the spare ties that weren't going to be installed that day. [more info]

NS MoW Tie Replacer

This traveled behind the tie removers, and put the new ties in place. Sometimes they can be very violent, shaking the whole track and themselves. Unfortunately, I did not get to photograph the tie removers, as they had finished removing ties by the time I got to them. [more info]

NS MoW Spike Drivers

These MoW vehicles simply drove spikes back into the newly installed ties. The person on the quad got in the way, I know. [more info]

NS MoW Tie Cleanup

Finally, this large crane/truck combo picked up the old ties for disposal. [more info]

Unfortunately, not all of the maintenance vehicles were showed in this post. If you would like to see the whole operation from start to finish, see the video on my Youtube channel.

Post by NEPA Trains on 17 June 2019
Categories: railfanning