Improved Efficiencies & Mechanization for Track Building?

[Mike Fox]

Jason should also be involved because he will have some thoughts on the subject as well..

[Joe Fox]

Dealing with extreme heat this past weekend, and our average volunteer age ever increasing, we really should have a "ballast" car and a suitable tamper that can tamp more efficiently then our current tamper.

Now I know this will highly irritate some, and say we do not have a need for a ballast car. However, as you ride along the railroad we should have ballast in several areas of in service track. I know that trucks and couplers are hard to come by, but man wouldn't it be nice to try to minimize our huge labor efforts, with our increasing volunteer shortages?

And much of the entire line could stand to be lifted and tamped, which naturally also means you need to reballast those areas or ballast ahead of time. 

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

I do agree with you Joe. When you are ageing trackworks especially spreading ballast and tamping it are gruelling tasks. Sticking to history and working on the line like in the  30's is of course a good thing that is actually the WW&F signature but times have changed  and volunteers are not getting any younger or more numerous so for such a task  a  bit of efficient machines wont do any harm. I was a regular track crew member in decades  at AMTP but  shoveling ballast and tamping it with a mattock really puts me off when I was over 55 but then again I was more used to working with a pen or a laptop everyday, but still.  WW&F has long proved it has many other realms in which it can comply with the historical truth and rebuilding Maine History. You could keep the traditionnal historical way to work on the line for SWW and FWW but  in other occasions it seems to me that introduce a bit of modernism may get things easier and speed them up like the rail gantry whose everyboby sounded satisfied with and , above all, you'll save your back.  My French two cent's worth of course.

[Rick Rowlands]

When Richard Craig passed away a few years ago and the Alvada Two Footer was disbanded, someone bought his ballast hopper car at the auction.  I have seen it listed from time to time for $4,500 and have not heard that it had been sold.  The car is a fully functional ballast hopper with air operated doors, and while not prototypically accurate for the WW&F, it would partially solve the problem of getting ballast out where it is needed. 

[John Kokas]

Rick & Joe,

Wayne and I have been discussing and searching on this very subject.  Rick - if that ballast car still exists, please let me know.  If it's still available, I and a couple of other members would gladly shell out the $4,500.00 for it.

[Ed Lecuyer]

We (Jason and I) investigated that (or a similar) ballast car that was available for sale about a year ago. In short, it would have required too many modifications (especially with the trucks/wheels) to be usable for the WW&F (or similar two-footers.)

They do come up on occasion, but are usually scaled for backyard, mining, or amusement park 24" gauge railroads. The only true solution is to build one scaled properly for the Maine two-footers (like the one the Portland Co. designed, but never built.) That means new (or rebuilt wheels, trucks, and couplers) which are high-priced and rare commodities.

In reality, we are almost done (relatively speaking) with this current sprint of track-laying. Any further (large scale) expansion should probably be predicated by construction of a suitable ballast hopper.

[Dag Bonnedal]

Two side tipping historic iron ore cars (blt 1912) and home built side tipping ballast car and ballast spreader.
https://museijarnvagenimariefred.se/banarbete-14-oktober-2018/

We also have one home built ballast car tipping between the rails, not needed that day.

Dag

[Carl G. Soderstrom]

Dag

Trevlig Midsommar!

[Dag Bonnedal]

Tack,
det samma

Dag