CSX Track Upgrades & Infrastructure of Pan Am

Several photos by Bruce McDonald on the New England Photo Archive show a Loram shoulder ballast cleaner on the Worcester Main.
Here's one photo----
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ex=1&key2=

Edit 6/6 --- I believe that is actually a ditch cleaner, not a shoulder cleaner.

Well that loram cleaner is pretty cool
Unless the ballast was cleaned as part of the approx 1990 conrail rebuild, Worcester main has never benefited from one of these

CSX stepping things up. A second Loram ballast cleaner on the tail end of M426 today apparently headed for Maine. Video from Stony Brook Videos--- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhMLPd ... WL&index=2

CSX operated a ballast cleaner on the Worcester Main summer/fall of last year (eg Still RIver Depot Rd area). I believe the ballast cleaner is not operating in the locations where Bruce captured its photos at W Boylston/Burncoat St so maybe it was just passing through to Ayer and points north?

Looking at the photo's by Mr. McDonald the machine is a "DC-5" which I believe would indicate a ditch cleaner. The machine in the Stony Brook video is a "SBC-11" indicating it's a shoulder ballast cleaner. Two different types of equipment.

Is this a rinsing or a washing process with detergents? Is the ballast sucked up then relaid in the cleaning process? I'm guessing that the idea is to remove organic matter from the ballast to slow down growth. Does the dirty water just go into the ground?

I've not heard of any rinsing but I guess some models could do it. Typically the ballast is scooped up and sent through a series of screens which separate fines and other junk and puts it back.

As newpylong said the SBC scoops up the ballast and dirt at end of tie about a foot deep and 1 1/2 feet wide on each side simultaneously, puts it through a screening process to seperate ballast from dirt and debris than relays the clean ballast at end of tie.The dirt and debris is usually spread at side of right of way using a conveyor belt that swings outward to where they want to dump it.In urban areas, they might use a hopper car behind machine to haul away the dirt and debris, using the same conveyor belt mentioned above.Maybe someone will get this on film in action .,best way to understand how it works.

MORE INFO if you look at photo SBC-11 at center of machine you can see a circular wheel with scoops, buckets,attached to the wheel.If you watch the gold mining show on discovery in the Yukon,TONY has a dredge that scoops up the earth and puts it through a screening and a trowel process to filter out the gold. the SBC is similar to this. On the SBC the circular wheel you see is pulled in to be transported.When in use the wheels on both sides will go out so inside of bucket clears the tie on each side.The buckets go around scooping up the ballast and dirt at end of tie and putting it through screens to separate ballast from dirt and debris and puts the clean ballast back at end of tie.

A pretty good video from Loram on the ballast cleaners - some decent shots of it in action and a description of how it works:

https://youtu.be/N0IcxoGucvY

THAKS for that LORAM video info.I love how a small like plow goes under tie slightly to break up packed ballast.

This equipment, or something very similar, was seen parked on the Greendale siding Tuesday afternoon. As was mentioned, the Worcester line had it's ballast cleaned last summer.

Weed spraying on the Stony Brook today. I tried to upload a picture, but I get this---"Imgur is temporarily over capacity. Please try again later"

Also M427 wb thru CPF-309 with empty blue "CWRX" rail cars.

Greendale siding this afternoon - ballast equipment was gone and replaced by parked FRA Safety Inspection car 220 and Gage Restraint Measurement Vehicle DOTX218.

Chux has a video up today with the loram sbc11 equipment on the rear of a train moving east supposedly near Winthrop and Belgrade ME
You can also see dropped cwr in places