MTA LIRR Double Track Project - Ronkonkoma to Farmingdale

Here's your answer, major track work for the next two weekends. I wonder what a New Track Construction (NTC) machine looks like, I know it's not the welding train that laid the new rail.

If it's the same thing they are using on the second track west of Albany, it's amazing.

Jeff Smith wrote:If it's the same thing they are using on the second track west of Albany, it's amazing.

I'm guessing that what you are talking about is that a NTC machine is like a TBM, it literally lays down the track and ties with the workers welding the rails and aligning the new track to be as straight as possible behind it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6VYuw52z-0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HmQilDC4VqY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

From this thread, about page 53 the discussion of the TLM starts: viewtopic.php?f=46&t=91157&start=780" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The video is amazing.

Those are the flat cars with ties that I saw. Did not see the actual track laying portion of the train, but then again I happened to only catch those cars as I was driving by....

Ohhh...........that explains all the busses at Hicksville Station today.

This is going to be so awesome when that track gets laid, 550 rail ties in one hour, can cover roughly about a mile to a little over a mile an hour. Next all they have to do is balance the ballast, add the third rail, and move the power lines back about 50 feet to the North when it comes to the track. I do feel bad for the people that use Carleton, Ocean, Peters, and Straight Path with the fact they will be closed for 52 hours for installation of new crossings. I'm wondering if they did this when they double-tracked from Amott Interlocking in Syosset to Hunt 1 Interlocking in the mid-1980's?

I wonder which side of the new track will the third rail lie, if going West on an M7 would it be on the left or the right side since the running track already there has the third rail on the South side of the track.

Both third rails will most probably be between the two [edit: pairs of] running rails, as on other 2-track stretches of the Main Line or elsewhere. This prevents people approaching the tracks without authorization from getting hurt.

berlintransit wrote:Both third rails will most probably be between the two [edit: pairs of] running rails, as on other 2-track stretches of the Main Line or elsewhere. This prevents people approaching the tracks without authorization from getting hurt.

...by the third rails without first having a chance to be hurt by the train.

I caught some track equipment going eastbound past Main Street in Mineola on 8/17/2016.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=p ... lw0b_AgIAg" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Very nice, thank you.

That's not a NTC (New Track Construction) machine, that is a part of it though but not the main part. Most likely that levels the ballast and picks up the ties. The machine has a moving cab on top that picks up and moves the ties to the loading area. Someone said the main part of the machine the key part was on the Pineaire freight track with the loader, dropper, and rail fastener.

Either way this weekend (20th-21st) they will continue the work by shutting down service in between Ronkonkoma and Farmingdale.

The tree and brush removal pace has picked up on the grade between Wyandanch and the old Deer Park station.
A string of filled LIRR ballast hoppers are on the siding by the old Deer Park station.

A memory of that downhill grade from Deer Park to Wyandanch: In the 1940's, before Gaston would walk with us from Winter Avenue to the Wyandanch station after an all-day visit, Dad asked him for an old newspaper. When the headlight of the locomotive appeared to leave Deer Park, Dad lit the paper, swinging it horizontal to remind the engineer that he had passengers at the flag stop. On one trip, I recall the conductor insisting on lowered window shades as we passed the airplane factories. It seemed quite often that we had to leave the train at Hicksville and await another steam train from the Port Jeff branch in order to continue to Jamaica and a hike up Sutphin Blvd. to the Eighth Avenue subway.

Just saw a video showing the NTC machine laying the track and they said it would be completed by the end of the day. All I need to know aside from grade crossing rehabilitation and installation, what needs to be done with the ballast, and third rail?