Working on the Railroad
Union Pacific was doing maintenance of way work on the line through Fernley. I happened to be getting ready to go to the grocery store as they were storing their equipment off the main line.
Here are the two pieces of specialty equipment seen on one of the Fernley house tracks while the MOW workers tied down the equipment and placed markers on the tracks to show that they were occupied. This is less of an issue now that BNSF appears to have lost their local switching contracts and no longer interchanges with Union Pacific here.
This is a a tamper-aligner, which tamps the ballast under the rails and helps keep the rails properly aligned.
This is a ballast regulator, which is a very noisy piece of equipment when it is sucking ballast up and then resetting it along the right of way.
The work these pieces of equipment do used to require a large team of workers with hand tools taking much longer to keep the ballast (and the track on top of it) tidy and the track aligned properly.
Meanwhile, today (or rather late tonight) is when Lisa and Chris weigh anchor from Munich, board an overnight sleeper to Hamburg (with a continuing train to Copenhagen) and start the more than two-week trip back home, which will involve trains, ferries, and (unfortunately but unavoidably at times) airplanes. I know that Lisa has checked out of the apartment because the charge for the last half of the rental (it was split into two stays for complicated reasons) hit my credit card overnight. All of the hotel rooms, ferries, and airline flights are booked. It's just a bunch of moving parts that have to all work.
Here are the two pieces of specialty equipment seen on one of the Fernley house tracks while the MOW workers tied down the equipment and placed markers on the tracks to show that they were occupied. This is less of an issue now that BNSF appears to have lost their local switching contracts and no longer interchanges with Union Pacific here.
This is a a tamper-aligner, which tamps the ballast under the rails and helps keep the rails properly aligned.
This is a ballast regulator, which is a very noisy piece of equipment when it is sucking ballast up and then resetting it along the right of way.
The work these pieces of equipment do used to require a large team of workers with hand tools taking much longer to keep the ballast (and the track on top of it) tidy and the track aligned properly.
Meanwhile, today (or rather late tonight) is when Lisa and Chris weigh anchor from Munich, board an overnight sleeper to Hamburg (with a continuing train to Copenhagen) and start the more than two-week trip back home, which will involve trains, ferries, and (unfortunately but unavoidably at times) airplanes. I know that Lisa has checked out of the apartment because the charge for the last half of the rental (it was split into two stays for complicated reasons) hit my credit card overnight. All of the hotel rooms, ferries, and airline flights are booked. It's just a bunch of moving parts that have to all work.