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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!ihnp4!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!jis1
From: jis1@mtgzz.UUCP (j.mukerji)
Newsgroups: net.railroad
Subject: re: New rails on the Boston & Lowell
Message-ID: <1183@mtgzz.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 19-Sep-85 14:53:00 EDT
Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1183
Posted: Thu Sep 19 14:53:00 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Sep-85 05:51:51 EDT
Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Middletown NJ
Lines: 69


> The rails are attached to these by
> curly metal brackets (anyone know what these are called?) 

Those curly metal brackets are called Pandrol Clips (why I don't know).

Amtrak has been upgrading its track on the NorthEast Corridor (NEC) between
Newark and New Brunswick in New Jersey to 120 mph standard. This
involves relaying the existing track, which consists of Continuously Welded
Rails (CWR) on wooden crossties. The new track is of new CWR on concrete
crossties. The operation is quite a site to watch. 

To a casual observer it appears as if no human hand touches any of the track
material at all. The operation begins with laying out the new CWR along the
track that is to be upgraded, one rail on each side, as described in Jim's
article. Then comes this giant machine, which is more than 100' in length,
which does the following: It firsts pulls out the spikes in the old track,
then it pushes the old rail aside, lifts the old crossties and replaces them
with new concrete crossties, which are fed into it from a train of flats,
which carry them in racks. The new ties are replaced by the old ones on
those racks. Then rail chairs, made of what appears to be a rubberlike
material are placed on the ties. The two new rails are then pulled in from
the sides and placed on the chairs and temporarily clipped in place. That
completes the work of this contraption which runs partly on the track that
it is about to uproot, partly on rubber tires, where it is doing the
uprooting, and partly on the new track. Oh yes, it also clears out all the
ballast and creates mounds of them on the side of the track.

This machine is then followed by a ballast cleaning and relaying machine,
which consists of a long string of gondolas with conveyor belts running all
along the length of the train. The ballast that was thrown to the side is
picked up cleaned and mixed with new ballast and layed out on the track by
this machine.

Finally comes the track alignment and tamping machine, which packs the
ballast under the track, aligns the track, fixes the guage within required
tolerance (I have heard a rumor that the gauge tolerance is less than an 8th
of an inch for 120mph), and does the final clipping of the rails in place.

Once that is done the track looks very different, what with white concrete
crossties and all. Of course, wiring up the track for cab signalling and all
that still remains to be done, but that is a much less visible operation.
What amazed me though, is that almost as soon as they finish a complete
section between two interlockings, they run a test run or two on the new
track, they run a track geometry car in at least one of these test runs, and
then the next thing that you see charging down the track is a New York -
Wahington DC Metroliner!!! Very impressive! 

They started this relaying operation from the Newark end. The new tracks
begin at the East end of the old CNJ overpass, east of Hunter interlocking,
and proceed eastwards. Only tracks 2 and 3 are being relayed. The last I
saw it, which was last weekend, they were at Rahway station. I am told that
they plan to finish relaying this section upto New Brunswick by November.
Apparently, this is the last non-concrete crosstie section in the NEC, 
barring of course, places like the B&P tunnel approach in Baltimore, and
such. In general track 2 and 3 have been relayed almost completely between
New York and DC. In some places track 1 or 4 have been relayed also.

Amtrak has come a long way since its inception. They have got a real
passenger railroad running in the NEC. To ride a Metroliner at 120mph on
these new tracks is quite an exhilerating feeling! If you plan to be
travelling between New York and Washington DC, try it. You'll like it!

Jishnu Mukerji
AT&T Information Systems Labs.
Holmdel  NJ  07733
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