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October 2019
Compiled by Pat Foran, Editor
Surfacing and tamping help maintenance-of-way (MOW) crews boost track stability, and in turn, help railroads operate more safely and efficiently. As ever, railroads are doing their usual share of surfacing and tamping work.
For example, CSX planned to surface 4,800 miles of track this year, according to the 2019 MOW Spending Report, which appeared in Progressive Railroading’s April issue. CSX expected to surface 4,800 miles. Union Pacific Railroad planned to complete out-of-face surfacing on 4,000 miles. Short lines and regionals, too, figured to be busy on the surfacing front. Genesee & Wyoming Inc., which owns 114 North American regionals and short lines, planned to surface 2,035 miles of track. To complete the work, railroads and contractors are using a range of equipment. Last month, Progressive Railroading reached out to several surfacing and tamping equipment providers, asking them to share information on their newest offerings. Emailed responses from five providers follow.
The TX16 Production and Switch Tamper is the latest addition to Harsco Rail’s suite of MOW equipment. The TX16 offers “increased productivity from start-up to shut down” and “speeds up every aspect of the work day, safely,” company officials said. A cab deployable/stowable reference, integrated high-speed measurement, automated tamping, and hybrid index combine to increase overall productivity. The forward-mounted cab is designed to change the way tamper operators perform work, providing switch tamping visibility and unobstructed views for travel. Additionally, the reference system can be fully deployed and stowed from the cab, enabling operators to remain safely in the cab and reducing setup and shutdown time.
The TX16 also includes Callisto ProTamp, a demonstrated, inertial-based non-contact measurement system that records track geometry data at speeds up to 30 mph. The machine’s hybrid index tamping cycle blends traditional indexing and continuous action to increase productivity. Developed based on Harsco’s experience with indexing tampers, such as the MKIV and 6700, and continuous action tampers, like the Drone and 32 Tool Tamper, the hybrid index tamping cycle “is high production in any ballast condition, cutting the time it takes to index in half, allowing for 30 percent to 40 percent faster production rates,” company officials said. Faster production rates are also supported by TX16’s automated tamping cycle for plainline, enabled by field-demonstrated tie-finding technology.
Ballast Tools Equipment (BTE) offers a range of hi-rail backhoes designed to handle difficult MOW jobs, company officials said. The BTE-450 and the BTE-420 hi-rail backhoes power the BTE Two-Motor Tamper attachment, a tool for tamping switches and diamonds — areas that typically cannot be tamped by traditional on-track tampers. Both hi-rail backhoes feature an extend-a-hoe for added reach.
BTE also offer a line of integrated, rail-specific attachments designed to work seamlessly with the backhoes. Attachment change-out is quick and easy, saving time for MOW crews, company officials said. Hose reels power hydraulic hand tools, and the large capacity front buckets have full range of motion while on the rail, they added.
Ballast Tools Inc. (BTI) offers Tungsten Carbide wear parts for MOW equipment. Wear solutions include parts for “virtually all MOW machines,” company officials said, including tampers, ballast regulators, undercutters, and tie and MOW equipment.
In field studies, BTI’s ballast regulator wing blades and skid shoes have performed for more than two years; the BTI front plow blades typically are still in service after a year with minimal wear, company officials said.
The new Arrow tip design tamping tool features a narrower tip for easier ballast penetration. In field tests, the tool was “still going strong” after 500,000 insertions over the course of two years, company officials said. Customers that use BTI’s Tungsten Carbide-protected wear parts “experience increased productivity, reduced downtime, fewer change outs, and decreased risk of injury,” they added.
With work windows at a premium, the “use of high production tamping machines is even more important,” Plasser American Corp. officials said. As a result, the company has been working to develop machines that work and travel at higher speeds.
For example, the Plasser 2X DYNACAT is a high speed, continuous-action switch and production track-tamping machine with an integral dynamic track stabilizer. The 09-2X DYNACAT’s design and construction enables production rates of up to 4,200 feet per hour, company officials said. New features include two-tie tamping units, which enable either two ties to be tamped in one operation, resulting in higher tamping performance; or one tie to be tamped if the tie spacing becomes irregular, or the machine has to work on track sections with skewed ties. The adjustment of the tamping units is done automatically while the machine is working without any input from the operator.
The 09-2X DYNACAT is available as a new machine and an existing DYNACAT can be converted to the new 2X DYNACAT, company officials said.
RCE Equipment Solutions offers what it terms an “innovative approach to tie tamping using little or no track time” while using the “proven reliability and latest technology” provided in a John Deere excavator. The excavator is equipped with a hydraulic package to meet the tamper attachment’s requirements; equipment can “swing out of the way” in high-traffic areas to enable trains to pass without interruption, officials said. RCE tamper heads are manufactured in-house, feature 360-degree rotation systems and are available in two- or four-motor configurations.
Email comments or questions to pat.foran@tradepress.com.
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