Public Relations and Advertising
Department
Windsor Station Montreal Que. H3C 3E4
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Volume
7 Number 12
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Sept. 21,
1977
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Ballast Cleaning Made Simple by
Mechanical Monster
By Charles Gordon
At 04:30 sharp each day, work
crews begin preparing the Undercutter for its day's work. On an average day, the slow,
plodding beast will clean about 1,600 feet of new ballast, and be off the rails by
09:00 in order not to obstruct rail traffic on the main line between Field and
Revelstoke.
Ottertail, B.C. - The ballast beast
strikes again, reports photographer Nicholas Morant, who had to get up pretty early
in the morning to catch a glimpse.
The "beast", for most who've never seen or heard about it, is one of the
most complicated and awesome pieces of machinery found on the railway - an
Undercutting/Ballast Cleaning machine.
Summer Months
Used during the summer months, the machine has just completed its major annual
assignment, covering a total distance of 6.8 miles at various locations between
Revelstoke and Field, B.C.
Here's how it works: Ballast alongside, underneath, and between the tracks is
loaded onto a conveyor and carried to a ballast cleaner which separates the stone
ballast from waste material. The ballast is uprooted by a chain pulled under the rails
by a cable and winch mounted on the machine. Cleaned ballast is returned to the track
while waste is deposited, in snowblower-like fashion, as dirt alongside
the roadbed or into rail maintenance cars.
Worn-Out
At the same time, work forces replace old, worn-out ties.
Average production is about 700 feet per hour or 1,500 - 1,600 feet per day depending
on geography and terrain.
To avoid working in the midday heat, and to minimize closure of the main line, a
30-man work force under the direction of Assistant Superintendent Al
Moorey, Roadmaster Frank Maronne, and Gang Foreman Frank Mastroianni, worked from
04:30 to 09:00 each day until the task was complete.
Time Consuming
According to Moorey, the most time-consuming part of the job was getting
the equipment to the work site each day and then getting it to a siding where it
would not obstruct rail traffic once the day's work was done.
On lease from Kershaw Manufacturing Company Inc. of Montgomery, Alabama, the
"beast" has been in use by CP Rail for the last five years.
Vast Improvement
"Although the machine is slow and hard to manoeuvre, it is a vast improvement
over the old days when ballast cleaning had to be done virtually by hand, or at best,
using a front-end loader", said T.V. Kennedy, deputy regional
engineer, Vancouver.
For the first six months of 1977, maintenance expenses on the Pacific Region amounted
to about $21 million.
A work train drops new ballast
down to replace waste material cleaned up by the Undercutter machine.
This CP Rail News article is
copyright 1977 by Canadian Pacific Railway and is reprinted here with their
permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian
Pacific Railway Company.
©
2005 William C. Slim
http://www.okthepk.ca
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