Rensselaer Adventures

This blog reports events and interesting tidbits from Rensselaer, Indiana and the surrounding area.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Completing the crossings

The railroad crossings in and around Rensselaer were disrupted for a week as the tie-replacement crews came through Rensselaer in late July and early August. I have posted about the tie-replacement work here, here and here. Today I have a short video showing some of the steps in ripping up and then replacing the crossings.
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What you are seeing in the video:
Start: Ripping up the old crossing on Matheson Street.
:08 A section of new track. For some of the side tracks, CSX seems to have constructed a completely new section of track with the ties attached, and then lifted it into place. What you see in the video seems to be one of those new sections.
:11 A ballast regulator with a loader dumping ballast on the crossing.
:17 A ballast regulator in action
:25 Positioning the wooden ties alongside the rails.
:31 Clamping the wooden tie tightly next to the rail and drilling a hole for a fastening bolt/screw
:41 Drilling holes
:50 Placing the bolts/screws into the newly drilled holes.
:54 Closeup of the crossing before the bolts/screws have been tightened into place.
:56 A crossing after the CSX crew is finished but before the paving crew arrives. The paving crew did not seem to be CSX workers--it appeared that CSX had contracted that work out.
:59 Paving crew doing the rough work, building up the surface. This and following clips show the Franklin Street crossing.
1:05 The crossing with the foundation asphalt in place.
1:08 A series of clips showing the final, finishing layer of asphalt being put down.
1:30 A truck picking up the road-closed signs.
1:33 Three finished crossings.

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