This giant piece of machinery, a tamper, was parked under the Lyon Street bridge on Thursday night.
Being a rail fan means that when you see interesting equipment on the track, you stop and take a look. This is what I did on a bike ride Thursday night.
Two big machines were parked on the Water Avenue track of the Portland & Western Railroad. They were waiting, sitting still with their engines running, which meant I could ask the guy on one of them what they were all about.
One, I learned, was a tamper. Made by a company named Pandrol Jackson, the machine is used to adjust rails so they are straight and at the correct elevation in relation to each other. The machine does this with brute force and a whole slew of complicated electronics.
You would not think that a big heavy machine can lift the track while it’s sitting right on top of it. Try lifting the chair you are sitting on, and you’ll see what I mean.
The tamper does just that, however, lifting both rails and ties just a couple of inches while stuffing ballast rock under the ties.
I didn’t understand the process when the guy explained it, but there are videos on YouTube that show how it works.
The other machine was a ballast sweeper, which does what the name says. It cleans up the track after the tamper is done tamping.
These two machines were waiting off Water Avenue, under the Willamette River bridges, until crews were done working on another section of track. I would have liked to see them in action, but it looked to be an indefinite wait, and I wanted to finish my ride.
The main upside of living in a railroad town is that you get to see and hear the trains. A side benefit is that now and then you are reminded that there’s much more to running a railroad besides operating the trains. (hh)
The sweeper was parked under the Ellsworth Street Bridge.
Interesting, Hasso. I have never heard of such a piece of equipment. Thanks. I love hearing the trains in the distance at night.