What does a Sperry Rail Service truck do?

While entering my last lap to get home, I came across this Sperry truck headed east on I-90 and snapped a picture. What does this kind of truck do while on the rails?

Sperry Rail Services - a division of Harsco Track Technologies of Danbury, Connecticut - operates a fleet of hi-rail trucks and self propelled rail cars to inspect track and discover internal flaws in the steel. The company has been in business for many years and is a worldwide operation. Sperry uses patented ultrasound detectors that spot defects that are otherwise not apparent. Railroads contract for periodic inspections by Sperry to lessen the possibility of broken rails.

SST wrote:While entering my last lap to get home, I came across this Sperry truck headed east on I-90 and snapped a picture. What does this kind of truck do while on the rails?

Mr. Blabey nailed it, here's more detailed info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sperry_Rail_Service" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Well, I did get one thing a little backward in my earlier post. Sperry Rail Service actually acquired Harsco Track Technologies - not the other way around as I indicated. I was going from memory, sometimes a bad thing at my age.

Beat me to it! Sperry is actually a subsidiary of Rockwood Service Corporation, a holding company specializing in various types of industrial inspection which purchased the company in 1994. Before that, they were part of Penn Central Corporation!

Thanks for the info.

Sperry uses Electro Magnetic Sound waves and Ultrasound technology in all it requires watching 6 ink pens move as long as the Pens make a straight line there is no defect if one spikes it's a possible defect. I used to work on the Rail Cars before they started to retire some of them in favor of the trucks. Back in 2000 I was involved with a new experiment using the older scanning technology on Rail Car SRS 125 a Hi-Rail Truck followed behind at about 100 yards testing a new form of Scanning equipment. We were not informed of how the truck performed until a few months later when we were told to bring the Cars back to Danbury, CT to either be rebuilt and upgraded with the newest form of scanning equipment or be scrapped.

Sperry does not have a base of operations in Eastern Europe, China or in Africa from what I can remember. They mostly operate in most of Western Europe, North & Central America, Australia, Scandinavia, and I believe India and one or two South American countries? It's been a while but I can check with some of my friends who still work for the company.

No more ink pens, lines on a monitor now! When I left them in 2003 they had just completed the buy-out of Harsco, and were starting to incorporate Harsco's B-Scan system into the trucks and cars. The Artificial Intelligence in Harsco's flaw detection system was much more advanced than Sperry's, but Sperry's hardware was as much advanced beyond Harsco's. All the trucks, and the few remaining cars, had been converted over to the B-scan system, so instead of the raw data you get a "stylized" view, essentially it looks like the rail is cut in half, lengthwise, and you are shown where the various probes are getting hits. Even the walking sticks in the Special Testing Group have been converted over to B-scan, with GPS tagging of defects. A far cry from the home-built rig I used!

With the buy-out of Harsco, I believe they picked up some work in China, but there was almost no work in Africa. At one time there was talk of some work for the STG at some mining facility somewhere in Africa, but nothing ever came of it, at least while I was there. We (the STG, or hand testers) mostly stayed in the US and Canada, but I did work one contract in Mexico, and a few in the UK.

rovetherr wrote:No more ink pens, lines on a monitor now! When I left them in 2003 they had just completed the buy-out of Harsco, and were starting to incorporate Harsco's B-Scan system into the trucks and cars. The Artificial Intelligence in Harsco's flaw detection system was much more advanced than Sperry's, but Sperry's hardware was as much advanced beyond Harsco's. All the trucks, and the few remaining cars, had been converted over to the B-scan system, so instead of the raw data you get a "stylized" view, essentially it looks like the rail is cut in half, lengthwise, and you are shown where the various probes are getting hits. Even the walking sticks in the Special Testing Group have been converted over to B-scan, with GPS tagging of defects. A far cry from the home-built rig I used!

With the buy-out of Harsco, I believe they picked up some work in China, but there was almost no work in Africa. At one time there was talk of some work for the STG at some mining facility somewhere in Africa, but nothing ever came of it, at least while I was there. We (the STG, or hand testers) mostly stayed in the US and Canada, but I did work one contract in Mexico, and a few in the UK.

I left Sperry at the end of November 2000 due a family member haveing an illness. The test that I brought up was conducted in October 2000 I wonder if that was the B Scan system that you brought up being tryed out. The test was conducted on a 2 day run near Watertown, New York with Sperry Car SRS 125 leading I don't know what the truck number was or if it even had one yet at that time. I only remember that the truck drove directley from Danbury, CT to the job site and when done after the 2 days of testing went directley back to Danbury, CT and we were told to keep going to Montral, Quebec with SRS 125.

Could have been testing the B-scan system, or it could have been testing the miniaturized electromagnetic system that is in the 900 series trucks. They have the electromagnetic and ultrasonic systems like the cars, but jammed into a hi-rail. They were starting to roll out when I signed on on 01/01/2002. And I forgot, I left in mid 2003, came back later that year, and left for good in late 2004. Loved the travel and the work, but wasn't a fan of our group getting shifted out of Engineering and into Operations. Plus working for an actual RR gets you real retirement. But that has little to do with what a Sperry truck does, now does it?!?