Philly Railfan Pictures of the Week

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Railfan Pictures of the Week - 04/08/2018

Amtrak Northeast Corridor Croydon Station Croydon PA April 5 2018

Inching down the NEC this spring is the Tie Laying Machine, back for the first time in 15 years. Having started west on Track 3 at MP65.3 Grundy Interlocking near Bristol in early March, by the first week of April they were down to MP70.7 Croydon.

The west end consists of an Amtrak locomotive (in this instance GP38H-3 AMTK 526) and a string of tie flats for both the new and old ties.

The east end is the business end, starting with spike puller car AMTK 15999. Actually spike puller was the old name when they were using it to replace wooden ties. It would more appropriately be called clip puller car as the workers underneath are removing the remaining Pandrol clips that are still holding the rails to the old concrete ties.

Next is AMTK 15552, a new car added since 2003, which appears to be a converted tie flat car with auxilliary power units installed.

Then comes the Tie Laying System portion of the TLM. The first segment is the tie transfer area, where the gantry drops off new ties and picks up the old ones, twenty two at a time.

The middle segment is where the actual installation is done. Each old tie is picked up and loaded on a conveyor as it delivers a new tie, while at the same time the old rail is swapped out with the new rail.

The third section provides the power and crew accomodations.

The last car is converted MHC AMTK 16803 used for tool storage.

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Website created January 1, 2017