Rubber tires meet steel rails
deadheading crews to and from remote sites than hopping on board a locomo- tive to take them up there. One exam- ple: the narrow gauge operation at Plaster City,
California, in the far
southwest corner of the state. When a crew had to be sent from one end of the 26-mile line to the other, rail was always the best way, as it was half the miles of a circuitous highway route. In the 1950’s, an industrious group of shop people took two identical Chrysler passenger automobile carbodies, cut off their back ends, welded them together and mounted steel wheels on them (see bottom of page 80). Dual controls and air conditioning were added and I’m sure the radio was left intact for a little onboard entertainment as it traveled through the desert. Such ingenuity was not the norm. Today, railroads own a number of
CHRIS D’AMATO: EAST BANGOR, PA; APR. 21, 1994
Conrail GMC maintenance truck N8134 (above) was equipped with a National boom crane and a stake bed, which made it useful in a variety of situations. A Ford 555D backhoe equipped to operate on both road and rail is fitted with jaws to pick up ties on the Battenkill Railway (below). This high-rail equipped Swingmaster magnetic crane is on the UP (bottom).
CHRIS D’AMATO: SALEM, NY; AUG. 18, 2008
rubber-tired vehicles that have had steel wheels added to them in order to do double duty, be a regular road truck when needed, and be a rail truck when needed. This ability to convert from one type of work to another has in- creased the efficiency of the workers and saved untold dollars in duplicate equipment. While working on the rail- road is never easy, equipment improve- ments over the years have gone a long way to making it better. But why something such as a pick- up truck? Why not a standard automo- bile? There are a number of very good reasons. First, it’s a lot more versatile than a speeder. Like a conventional auto, the pickup has more horsepower, it has air conditioning and a heater, and more comfortable seats. But, a pickup can do one thing a regular automobile cannot; it can haul a lot more equipment. Everything from tools, short pieces of rail, ties, and tie plates to a generator, gas-powered saws and jack hammers. Just as importantly, it can provide in- creased protection for the crew with
properly aligned with the track, can lower their steel wheels to the rail. Once the operator locks everything in place, the highway pickup truck has now become a high-railer capable of moving men and equipment wherever they need to go on the railroad, even to the most inaccessible by road site, quickly and easily. It wasn’t always this way, however. Once, road vehicles equipped with steel wheels for railroad right-of-way travel was pretty much the exclusive domain of railroad presidents and divi- sion superintendents wanting to take a spin around the railroad. As usual, there were exceptions. More than one railroad found it easier to transport
78 OXNARD, CA; JULY, 2001
MAY 2012
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