The Stony Brook Branch

Because I frequent this area of Pan Am I'm starting this thread about this section of the railroad from Ayer to Chelmsford .

I am posting a picture of the recent rail replacement project that took place in the fall of 2017. The picture shows what happens when you don't replace bad ties before installing new rail. The ties disintegrate. There are more areas like this.

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Another picture.

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Well at least rail clips were placed around the decrepit tie! I'm not an expert on the matter, but I think the Stony Brook needs stone and ballast rework, as well as more new ties.

They'll never learn.

Did the R.J. Corman crew have to go through retraining before they could work on other lines?

Another location

Not too mention the line had 132lb welded rail that was replaced with new 115lb welded rail.

Rail looks to be the same size in the pictures. I doubt they would replace rail with lighter rail. Especially on a main line.

Back in the day, B&M had lots of 132 lb rail. Over the years it's been mostly replaced with 115 lb rail.

flyingfox10 wrote:Rail looks to be the same size in the pictures. I doubt they would replace rail with lighter rail. Especially on a main line.

A lot of the 132lb was R4 rail that is largely shot by now. 115 is pretty common for replacement.

newpylong wrote:R4 rail

?
Not familiar with that term, can you elaborate a little?

flyingfox10 wrote:Rail looks to be the same size in the pictures. I doubt they would replace rail with lighter rail. Especially on a main line.

I can confirm that the rail is definitely 115RE rail purchased from A&K . I don't know if it's "relay" or new. I have seen tags on the newly installed rail.

KSmitty wrote:

newpylong wrote:R4 rail

?
Not familiar with that term, can you elaborate a little?

Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act

or

"Bankruptcy rail"

The rail that the B&M put in across the system during the 70s at either part of the R4 act or bankruptcy reorganization.

Didn’t Dustin’s R4 track upgrade of B&M permit single crew to run Rigby to Mechanicville (16 hour max HOS)?

The max HOS was already down to 12 before Dustin took over.