Railroad Forums 

  • CSX Track Upgrades & Infrastructure of Pan Am

  • Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.
Guilford Rail System changed its name to Pan Am Railways in 2006. Discussion relating to the current operations of the Boston & Maine, the Maine Central, and the Springfield Terminal railroads (as well as the Delaware & Hudson while it was under Guilford control until 1988). Official site can be found here: PANAMRAILWAYS.COM.

Moderator: MEC407

 #1603530  by BandA
 
Keolis, PAR, and CSX are probably going to have some differences in their procedures. Is CSX using Pandrol clips?

Say they are trying to spike new rail to worn out ties. Does the spiking machine "test" the result and take a mental (computer) note or automatically spray a splotch of paint, or do they just move on leaving the spike attached to nothing?
 #1603535  by newpylong
 
It's highly unlikely they will put that rail into the existing ties. As has been noted, for a full rebuild new ties go first, then rail, then ballast work. I can't see the Worcester Main being anything less than a full rebuild.
 #1603539  by GKS
 
SpiderHill wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 3:53 pm
johnpbarlow wrote: Sat Jul 30, 2022 10:41 am One half of the combined CWR trains has been dropped on the west end of the Camp track at Ayer as of 1115 Saturday 7/30/23. Not sure where CWRX portion of the CWR train that came into Worcester is.
The other half is on the Worcester main on the Clinton siding. Pictures from about 3pm today. Same power as your pictures from Ayer. Power is on the Worcester end of the siding.

Image

Image

Image

Image
Just spotted these on the causeway that crosses the reservoir. This was about 5:30pm. Couldn't see what was going on because of trees but there was a lot of noise like rails were being dropped.
 #1603541  by rustyrails
 
I guess there has been talk of a supply of rails was off loaded recently. This past Friday (July29) a mega load of rails were sitting on the train at CP 45 siding track. I was told it was being off loaded yesterday.
 #1603544  by neman2
 
Here is an example of what happens when you try to install new rail over bad ties. This picture is from Pan Am's work on the Stony Brook to install new rail in Westford in 2016. When you attempt to install new rail, spikes, and anchors on bad ties, the ties disintegrate!!! The new anchors they installed there are useless.


Image
 #1603572  by Ken Rice
 
Yup, there are some disintegrated ties with tie plates and the screws supposed to hold them down flopped around nearby after the new rail was laid on the Fitchburg line through Waltham. But most of the ties are in good enough shape to hold everything together.
I can see where if there are enough bad ties it would make more sense to do the ties first.
 #1603660  by newpylong
 
Last I looked CSX installs quite a bit of Nippon rail because the US manufacturers do not meet the strength (ie hardened) requirements. The US manufacturers being Mittal and Oregon Rolling.

When Pan Am put new rail in the tunnel in the mid 2000s when I was there, they bought and installed Russian rail lol. It was some oddball weight.
 #1603661  by MEC407
 
If Japanese rail is good enough for the Japanese railways, it's probably better than anything we've got here in the states! I would imagine that German rail is extremely high quality as well.
 #1603718  by SpiderHill
 
Here are a couple more pictures of the CWRX rail train. This train was completely empty yesterday evening. I zoomed in on the photo to show the marking s on the rail. The second train is still fully loaded and is now sitting on the Clinton siding. The rail appears to be different than the first train. The turnout components are Nippon Steel.

Image

Image
 #1603763  by johnpbarlow
 
Unloaded CWRX cars were tacked onto the end of M427 seen climbing past the Chester depot at 0731 Wednesday 8/3/22.
Attachments:
CSX M427 mt CWR cars Chester 080322.JPG
CSX M427 mt CWR cars Chester 080322.JPG (114.16 KiB) Viewed 1427 times
CSX M427 mt CWR cars Chester 080322 2.JPG
CSX M427 mt CWR cars Chester 080322 2.JPG (124.97 KiB) Viewed 1427 times
 #1603800  by neman2
 
I took a "field trip" to Clinton today . At approximately 14:00 hours rail train dropping rail moving westbound between Sterling St and New Harbor Rd. overhead bridge in Clinton. A RJ Corman high rail pickup with torches and Corman 10 wheel boom truck following. For those of you who have scanners rail train and Corman workers are on 161.40.

I also observed that tie plates have been dropped between the existing rails, so my previous statement about ties being replaced before new rail is set may be incorrect.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
  • 6
  • 56